τῇ vot cle 5 Bhedligicn: Sem 
gi" 


PRINCETON, N. J. 


Bra DH's: ΒΒ | 
Watkins, Oscar Daniel, 1848- 
1926* | 


ἀν τ esas 





᾿ ὯΝ \ 








HOLY MATRIMONY 


A TREATISE ON THE DIVINE LAWS OF MARRIAGE 





HOLY MATRIMONY 


πὶ ὙΦ DED ὦ 


ΟΝ 


Che Mivbine Laws of Marriage 


BY 


OSCAR D. WATKINS, M.A. 


A SENIOR CHAPLAIN 


ON HER MAJESTY’S BENGAL ESTABLISHMENT 


LONDON 
RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL AND CO. 
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN 


1895 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2019 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/holymatrimonytreOOwatk_0 


PREFACE 


TREATISE on the Divine laws of marriage has long been 

a recognized need in the Anglican communion. It 

remains to be seen whether the present volume will be found 
to meet this need with any adequacy. 

I have endeavoured to indicate as fully as possible all the 
various sources from which my material has been drawn. It 
will be sufficient here to notice 

(a) That the references to the Fathers are commonly given 
with the paging of Migne’s Patrologia, as being the collection 
readiest to hand in the great public libraries, and 

(6) That among modern writers I am mainly indebted to 
the four following :— 

1. Keble, Sequel to the argument against unduly repealing 
the laws which treat the nuptial bond as wndrssoluble. 
Oxford, 1857. 

2. Zhishman, Dr. Jos, Das herecht der Ortentalischen 
Kirche. Wien, 1864. 

3. Freisen, Dr. Jos., Geschichte der Canonischen Eherechts. 
Tiibingen, 1888. 

4. Thiersch, Heinrich W. J., Das Verbot der Ehe innerhalb 
der nahen Verwandtschaft. Nordlingen, 1869. 

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my old friend Dr. Serrell, 
of Lincoln’s Inn, for his goodness in undertaking the burden- 
some labour of revising the work for the press. The fact that 
Dr. Serrell’s own standpoint precludes his sympathy with my 
areuments, or his acceptance of my conclusions, can only make 
me the more grateful to him. 

OSCAR Ὁ. WATKINS. 


MUSSOORIE, 
NortH-WEsST PROVINCES OF INDIA, 
All Saints’ Eve, 1894, 


VII. 


Wake 


SUB ECTS” OF. Gri ΕἸΠΕ ΡΟΣ 


Or THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 


Or THE THREE CHARACTERS OF MARRIAGE AS FOUND 
IN HISTORY 


Or MARRIAGE IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE 


Or THE FALL; AND OF THE CORRUPTION OF ALL 
FLESH 


Or MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL, AND OUTSIDE 
CHRISTIANITY 


Or CHRISTIAN, oR Hoty, Matrimony 


Or THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE; 
AND OF DIVORCE 


Or THE REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS, AND OF MIXED 
MARRIAGES 


Or PoLyGAMY 


Or MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 


PAGES 


1-17 


18-20 


21-23 


24. 40 


41-73 


74-150 


151-438 


439-590 


591-633 


634-708 


CONTE NeeS 


CHAPTER il: 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 


Two chief opinions current, viz., PAGE 
1. Marriage is of Divine Institution . : : earl 
2. Marriage is purely a civil contract or status. el 


Only the former theory can come within the scope of ΠΕΣ Ἢ" 
To prove that marriage is Divinely instituted, theologians appeal to 


1. Holy Scripture . : . : - rive ἯΙ 
2. Christian History : : : : * tl 
3. Reason . : : : : rs! 


1. Holy Scrupture. 


i, S. Matt. xix. 4-6. 1 
ii, S. Mark x. 6-9. 2 
111. Genesis 11. 21-25 . 2 
iv. Malachi 11. 14-16 3 
v. Ephesians v. 22-33 3 

2. The Church in History. 
Unanimous. It will suffice to refer to 
S. Chrysostom 
S. Augustine 
S. Jerome 
S. Thomas aie 
Pope Leo XIII. 
The Prayer-book of the ΠΝ ΠῚ 
i. Opening address 
ii, Charge to those about to be ΠῚ 
iii. Questions preceding the betrothal 
iv. The words of the betrothal 
v. Prayer after giving of the ring 
vi. On joining the hands 
vii. Prayer preceding the final piesine 


ONINNTNANADAAAAMIAK Aa —& ὦ. 


viii. The final blessing 


xX HOLY MATRIMONY 


3. Reason. PAGE 
Society based on the family, not on the State ; : ὙΠ} 9 


Civil enactments mutually contradictory. This exemplified 
from (i.) the British Isles, (ii.) the British Colonies, (ii1.) the 
United States of America, and (iv.) the Indian Empire ᾿ς ὦ 


i. The British Isles. 


(a) England . : ‘ : . 9 
(b) Scotland . : : : : “10 
(c) Ireland , : ; : 5 ἘΠῸ 


li. The British Colonies. 
(a) British North America. 


(α) The Dominion of Canada : : ΤῸ 
(8) Newfoundland . : : ᾿ 1] 
(b) Australasia : eet 
(esp. the new ΓΝ Act es 1890) . : ΗΠ 
111. The United States of America. 
(a) Virginia . : ‘ : A Ὁ 
(b) New York . : : : ϑ ele 
(c) Massachusetts : Σ : : cache 
(d) Connecticut . : ᾿ : . 14 
(6) Louisiana . : Ξ 5 ‘ . 14 
(7) Pennsylvania Α : - : 5 ἢν 
(g) Ulinois : 1ὅ 
The divorce laws τ the fhe States ἘΠ be fond 
analogous to one or other of these types : Lo 
iv. The Indian Empire. 
Law of marriage personal, not territorial . : LG 
(a) Hinduism : : : . ἐδ 
(α) Hindus elie 4 : : LG 
(8) Polyandrous tribes. : ᾿ Soaks 
(Ὁ) Islam... : : : eLG 
(a) Ordinary ΠῚ : : : ὙΠῸ 
(6) Temporary Marriages . : : 5 Es: 
(c) Christianity : Wy) 
Amid such contradictions cannot be ΠῚ sani authority 
or the satisfaction of conscience . iby 


This treatise concerned only with the laws volved in ans 
institution of marriage by Gop. It is not concerned 
with merely human laws, whether civil or ecclesiastical 17 


CHAR DEL. 


OF THE THREE CHARACTERS OF MARRIAGE 
AS FOUND IN HISTORY 


1. Marriage in the State of Innocence, and before the Fall . : . 18 
Divorce and polygamy excluded. Divine assistance afforded . 18 


CONTENTS X1 


PAGE 
2. Marriage after the fall and outside Christianity : , 19 
Perverted. Divorce and polygamy admitted, but incestuous 
unions the object of direct prohibition : : Ὁ 19 
3. Holy or Christian Matrimony . . ἱ : 19 
Man reconciled to Gop. The moral law revived. ἩΓΕ ΤΣ 
revived in its strictness. Divorce and polygamy excluded. 
The Holy Spirit in the baptized transfigures the ong 
mystery into a Christian sacrament. 19 
The positions of this i to be Supra in the chapters shvid 
follow : . 20 
CHAPTER III. 
OF MARRIAGE IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE 
1, The Objects of Marriage . : i ; mL 
(a) That man should not be lone : : : roa 
(b) That Gop “might seek a godly seed” : : ΠΟ] 
[(c) That sin might be avoided] : - : 1! 
2. The Copula (copula carnalis) : : : ‘ . ey 
3. The Exclusion of Polygamy : : ; ; . 23 
4. The Exclusion of Divorce : : : : se a 


GHAPTER CIV. 
OF THE FALL; AND OF THE CORRUPTION OF ALL FLESH 


A, THE FALt. 

Results of the Fall oe : : . 24 
The truth of the narrative of the Fall eed : , ae 
The Theology of the Fall is variously stated . ‘ : Py 25 


1, The Catholic doctrine. 
Man terribly injured, but his restoration possible by the grace 
of Gop . ‘ : “ - 5 . 25 
2. The Calvinist doctrine. 
Man fallen beyond the Pose PHL, of restoration. Righteousness 


only imputed to him : : . 25 

The Catholic doctrine here adopted . 26 
In Christian or Holy Matrimony the Holy aire Pores the right 

eousness of the original ordinance, and transfigures it . 26 


What was the character of marriage when man was fallen ste ΠῚ 
yet redeemed? None were in a state of grace, and none could 
therefore fall from it. Polygamy and divorce were suffered by 
Gop without added condemnation . 27 

In the Christian Church the whole moral ey and net eres the 
law of marriage, had afterwards to be tightened. The sufferance of 
polygamy and divorce among the fallen is not therefore an ex- 
ceptional fact in the moral sphere . 28 

But is the particular sufferance of too serious a Sees to Re inte 
explained? In reply let enquiry be made as to the alternatives of 
degradation . : : ; : : . 29 


Xll HOLY MATRIMONY 


B. THE CoRRUPTION OF ALL FLESH. ἘΑΟΣ 
1. Notices in Holy Scripture. 
(a) Before the Deluge : ὃ : : ee, 
(b) After the Deluge : : ; : ᾿ 
2. Outside the record of Holy Scripture. 
(a) Polyandry ν᾿ : ς : - 32 
(Ὁ) Promiscuity : : : : : . 9 
(ὁ) Incestuous practices : : : : - ΟὟ] 
(d) Offences against nature. 38 
Thus polygamy and divorce might be erated for ἐπὶ πτρέρς of 
men’s hearts, lest worse should come : : Es) 
Significance of these records in the light of modern ἌΝ ΝΕ : 38 
No uniform advance from lower to vee types of the sexual 
relations ; , . 39 
This admitted by Mr. Herbert Spence: : 39 


The Christian explanation is that all corruption of the flesh is a 
falling away from the high standard of the state of innocence . 39 


CHAPTER TY: 


OF MARRIAGE AFT EK Gir eens 
AND OUTSIDE CHRISTIANITY 


} The present chapter a historical enquiry : ° : . 41] 
| A. MARRIAGE AMONG THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. 
1. Prior to the Mosaic Cede 

The line of Seth - : : 42 


Marriages of near kin. The relation of incest to the Fall ; ᾿ 48 
The descendants of Shem. Abraham, Jacob, The bondage in 


Egypt. ς : : . . 44 
2. The Mosaic Code. 
1. Polygamy. 
(a) Provisions of the Code Ξ : : ς . 46 
(a) “A woman to her sister.” Lev. xviii. 18 : : . 46 
(8) Slave wives. Ex. xxi. 10, 11 : ' : . 46 
(vy) Royal polygamy. Deut. xvii. 17 ν᾿ : : ΣΥΝ 
(δ) Ceremonial checks. Lev. χνυ. ἥ18, ; : . 47 
(ε) The Levirate custom. Deut. xxv. 5 47 


(¢) Laws governing the distribution of property. Dene xxi, 15- 17 47 
(n) Captives of war. Deut. xx. 14; Deut. xxi. 10-14 . . 48 
Summing up these provisions : : ς . 48 
1. They find polygamy admitted. 
2. They regulate and restrain it. 
3. They do not condemn it. 


(b) Practice of the Hebrew People 3 : : , 49 
Instances from Gideon to Joash_ i . 49 
Polygamists did not forfeit the Divine blessing : . 49 
Polygamy rare in the post-Babylonian period 49 


Thus polygamy was both Hert to, and practised by, 
the chosen people : 51 


CONTENTS - 


The Mosaic Code (continued)— 
ii, Divorce. 
Permission of divorce by the Mosaic code recognised by 
our Lord : ; 
(a) Law of the bill of dwworce. Deut. setup 1-4 
The sehool of Hillel admitted divorce for “every cause” 
The school of Shammai only for actual adultery 


The Mosaic code neither originated the practice of Sores 
nor rendered it more easy 


(b) rae of the ee failing which she might depart Ex. ἜΣ 
11 


0, 
(c) ἘῸΝ forbidden marry ΠῚ women. Ter ἜΣΤΙ 7 


Therefore marriages with the divorced were Le eee poh 
unholy : : 
(d) Gop's hatred of putting eee Mats ii. 14-16. 

Our Lord teaches that divorce found no place in the 
original institution, and was conceded oe for the 
hardness of men’s hearts 

Not necessary to prove the practice of cares 

Divoree then was both cae Be and ea bys the 
chosen people 

111. The Levirate Custom. : 

Strictness of Mosaie code with ἜΘΟΣ to een umions 

These condemned even in the outside heathen 

Condemnation of marriage with a brother’s wife. The 
curse of childlessness attached : 

These condemnations expressly on the ground of the in- 
herent impurity of the specified relationships 


Yet we are confronted with the Levirate law. Deut. xxv. 
5-10 

The union with a π΄. ice when ἘΣ τος fied 
childless, is actually enjoined 

Is the Levirate law 
(a) A new law, which disregards the inherent impurity 

of the union for the sake of the inheritance ? or 

(b) The permission of an existing custom ? 


Certainly the custom existed before the Mosaic code, ae 
the Mosaic law is in the direction of restraint : 
The Levirate custom outside the lmits of the chosen 
people. The Code of Manu 
Other instances 
Possibly (a) a survival of polyandry, or 
(b) a form of the inheritance of ἜΣ 
Thus the Levirate law as practised by the chosen people 
(1) involves an union of near kin, which, under other 
circumstances, is said to be inher ently sinful 
(2) was not originated by the Mosaic τα ae but 
was in force centuries before it 
(3) was not confined to the chosen line, but was prac- 
tised among other peoples : : 


ΧΙ] 


PAGE 


51 
51 
51 
52 


52 


52 
53 


53 
53 
54 
54 


54 
54 
54 
54 
55 
56 
56 


56 


57 
57 


58 
59 
59 
61 


62 
62 


62 


X1V HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Mosaic Code: The Levirate Custom (continued)— PAGE 
(4) was never permitted to the chosen people except 
with special reference to the continuance of familes 62 
(5) was no longer compulsory, non-comphance being 
visited only with a marked discredit : 62 
Conclusion: The Levirate custom, like polygamy and 
' divorce, was a custom not devoid ‘of a sinful character, 
but suffered for a while in a fallen race for the hardness 
of men’s hearts ; and the Mosaic legislation was in the 
direction of restraint, and not in that of encouragement 62 


B. MARRIAGE AMONG NON-CHRISTIAN PEOPLES OTHER THAN THE 

CHOSEN Race. 
Marriage was not better guarded in the race at large than among 
the chosen people. Divorce, or polygamy, or both, were 


commonly admitted . : . [ὦ 
As examples may be taken the marriage laws of the Indian (ites: 65 
The marriage law of India is personal, not territorial . : ᾿ς ἴον 


1. Hinduism. 
Great diversity of marriage laws among the Hindus. They vary 


from the highest type of non-Christian union to polyandry . 65 
Lower forms will not here be considered. But are there any Hindu 

marriages which forbid both polygamy and divorce ? ‘ 6-66 

1. Polygamy. : : : - : - (δὲ 

Dr. Banerjee. ‘ Polygamy is not illegal in any case.” . 67 

11, Divorce. 68 


Divorce not ordinarily admitted. “But virtual divorce of 
daily occurrence by the supersession of the wife under 


the laws which admit polygamy . 68 

In some cases formal divorce is permitted by Ἐπ δε GY 
Conclusion: The Hindu marriage contract is never so 

stringent as the Christian marriage contract 70 
Yet to a considerable population of Hindus polygamy and 

divorce are alike foreign 70 


Married converts from such a minnie need ake very 
careful application of the Pauline privilege. (1 Cor. vil. 13) 70 


2. Islam. : the. 
Under no Mohammedan system does marriage exclude either 

polygamy or divorce . : : ‘ : nee 

1. The Sunni Code . : : 5 : aT. 

(a) Polygamy . : . ἅι 
Four wives permitted: ἴῃ: as many female slaves 

as the man pleases : ς : yal 

(b) Dworce. . ὅ : yd: 

Regular and inegula renter ; ; el 

1. The Imamiyah or Shia Cod : : : 517} 

(a) Temporary a Bs for fixed terms  . Se Mery 


(b) Polygamy. 
Four wives by permanent contract. As many as 
the man pleases by temporary contract. As 
many slaves as he pleases . : 


-τ 
bo 


CONTENTS XV 
Islam: The Imamiyah or Shia Code (continued)— PAGE 
(c) Dworce. : : ; th 
As with the Sunnis. But no repudiation of women 
under a temporary contract 72 
Conclusion: No Musulman marriage precludes either 
polygamy or divorce 72 
Where polygamy or divorce or both are admitted, the contract i is not 
the same as the Christian contract, and cannot be held to involve 
exclusive faithfulness and the indissoluble character 73 
Yet these marriages are survivals of the original institution, and are 
not to be thrown contemptuously aside 73 
Where the status admits neither polygamy nor divorce, ine Chior 
tion of the baptized is still wanting before such marriages can stand 
on the same footing with Christian or Holy ΟΡ ΣΙΠΙΟΗΣΙ The mar- 
riage is not essentially indissoluble : 73 
But the higher the conditions of the union, the more constraining is is 
S. Paul’s counsel to the converted partner to abide 73 
CITAT ALE Reavils 
OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY = 


The Rationale of Christian Matrimony. It is the union of members 
of the Body of Christ, in which the exclusive and indissoluble 
character of the original institution is restored : : 

A. OF THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 

The Divine Institution alone concerned. Neither secular nor 
merely ecclesiastical regulations considered : 

1. Is ut indispensable that both the parties to a marriage should hae been 

baptized ? : 
Investigation at length in Chapter VIII. Conclusion ‘there 
attained that no marriage can be recognised as Christian 
marriage in which at the time of first entering upon the 
marriage one of the parties was baptized and the other un- 
baptized ; unless indeed and until the DepEd partner 
receive baptism 
2. Is the public solenvmzation with the ale Reed ction at ΤΣΣΩΣΝ ΓΝ 9 
It is important to be acquainted with the Roman law and 
with the Roman customs 
i, Roman Law : : : 
The one essential feature was mutual consent, Marriage 
was a simple contract . : ; 
Neither (a) any outward solemnization, nor 
(ὁ) the copula 
was essential before the law 
11. Roman Customs 
These varied with the class of marriage adopted 
Classes of Marriage 
(a) Marriages establishing a conventio im manum 
(a) Confarreatio 
(8) Co-emptio 
(vy) Usus 


74 
76 


76 


78 


78 
78 


78 
78 


78 


19 
80 
80 
80 
80 
80 
81 
81 


xvl HOLY MATRIMONY 


Roman Customs (continued)— 
(b) Marriages not establishing the manus . 
In practice, only these were in use among Christians 
The solemnities involved ordinarily 
(a2) The Sponsaha 
; (8) The Wedding 
Ceremonies of a Christian marriage supposed . 
I. The adornment of the bride 
(1) The vesting : 
(a) The tunica recta . 
(b) The girdle 
(c) The bridal veil 
(d) The shoes 
(2) The loosing of the hair 
(a) The hair divided with a gree 
(0) let down : 
(c) or held inanet . 
(3) The coronation 
II. The ceremonies of the Sponsalia 
(1) The subsidiary ceremonies 
(a) The arrhae 
(b) The ring 
(c) The kiss 
(d) The joining of hands 
(2) The signing of the tables 
(3) The benediction of the priest 
(4) The congratulations of the friends 
Ill. The home-coming Bi the bride 
The marriage of the early Christians was ainiply the ΠΕΣ δ Ὡς 
Romans, with the Christian prayer of benediction somewhere 
introduced 
In the earliest times it took “Shruot in the house, But Cre in the unt 
The benediction came in time to be regarded as the central feature 
Eastern theology often regards the benediction as essential 
The Confession of Peter Mogilas : ς : : 
Western theology. Melchior Canus. No sacrament without the 
benediction. This opinion condemned by Pius IX. 
Evidence as to the essential character of the benediction . 
1. Holy Scripture 
Silent 
2. The Church in History 
Text of Authorities 
Examination of Authorities 
S. Ignatius 
S. Clement of Alexandria 
The Clementines 
Tertullian 
~~ ΝΑ, Siricius 


CONTENTS XVil 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
S. Timothy of Alexandria : : 7 4s 
S. Ambrose. : : ᾿ : - 8. 
S. Basil ; : : . : . 99 
Synesius ‘ : : : : . 99 
S. Innocent I. : : : ποὺ 
The Statuta Ecclesiae Li ie : 99 


Clear that the benediction was an ordinary accompani- 
ment of Christian marriage. But it was not required 
by either the ecclesiastical or the secular law as a con- 


dition of valid marriage for many centuries : . 980 
Theodosius and Valentinian δ : : . 99 
Justinian : : ‘ : - . 100 
The Eclogue . : : LOO 
Capitularies of the Frankish Kings . 100 
Summary of the evidence of the first thousand years of 

Christianity . cakes 

1, Benediction not necessary to validity ; but still ΟῚ 
2. An ordinary accompaniment of marriage . ΞΟ] 


The past nine centuries in accordance with these results 101 
3. Is wt essential that there should be a preluminary contract, whether <A) 


with or without the priestly benediction ? - 101 | 
The mutual consent of the τῶ is universally admitted to be 

essential . : . 101 
No instance of the denial of this necessity ἿΝ any ΑΙ wr iter 102 | 
The necessity may be illustrated from the impediments. (These 

only formally enumerated under the later ecclesiastical law) . 103} 
i. Impediment of Error ΤΩΣ 


(a) Error as to person invalidates, because consent is wanting . 103 


(b) Error as to condition, fortune, or character does not in- 
validate (not even in cases of pre-nuptial unchastity) 


because consent as to the person 15 present . : . 104 
ii. Impediment of Force and Fear (Vis et Metus) : : . 106 
Invalidates because consent is wanting : : . 106 
111. Impediment of Abduction (Raptus) : : lO? 
Invalidates where consent is wanting any: 
This is sufficient evidence that consent is held to be necessary: 
there being no contention on the other side . : 107 
What ts covered by mutual consent? . : ΑΕ 108 
Some forms of contract more explicit than oer : . 108 
i. The Anglican Prayer-book : : : 108 
(a) “After Gon’s ordinance” . : . 109 
(b) To “love, comfort, honour, and kee ep” the wife, 
and similarly the wife the husband. A partial 
recital only . ὃ . 109 
(c) To “forsake all others.” Exclusive ἘΠ ὙΠ10 
(ὦ) “Till death us do part.” Indissoluble Re AO 
ii, The Roman Ritual . A : : ἘΠ] 10 
iii. The Eastern Euchologion : : : 1 
Van Espen on consent : : : 112 


b 


XV1ll HOLY MATRIMONY 


t= 
}4. Is the copula carnalis merely an ordinary accompaniment of the 


Ϊ marriage state, or is there no marriage state without wt? . . 112 
| Considerable difference of oe Question difficult yet 

important : : ς : “112 

i. Holy Scripture : : ear ; : 1119 

Gen. 11. 23. 2 4 . - : : : ko 

S. Matt. xix. 4-6 : : Ἶ . 113 

S. Mark x. 6-9 . : : ᾿ : . 113 

Eph. v. 28-31 _ . ; : : : . 114 

ΠΟ ΠΟΙῸΣ : : : : Ὁ 

Heb. xiii. 4 . 115 

Holy Scripture countenances the view that the copula i is essential 115 

ii. The Church in History : : : : my ib Es 

A. The first fe centurves . : Ξ : LLG 

Text of Authorities . : 5 : : 9110 

Examination of Authorities . : ; : ΤῊ 

8. Clement of Alexandria. : ; ὃ ἘΠῚ 

; The Apostolical Constitutions : ὃ : ΠῚ 

S. Ambrose , : : : : ΠῚ 

S. Chrysostom 5 : : : SLE 

S. Jerome : : : : : aELLS 

S. Augustine : 118 
During the first five centuries the copula held to be essential, 

except by S. Augustine. ; : : “119 

B. The Middle Ages : . 119 
Passing to the eleventh penta ey fee is a Sie alien 

between (a) meee and (6) Pees : : ᾿ . 119 

(a) Theory . : : : 5110 

a. The ὌΠ 110 


The grounds of the view v that the Papeete was τος essen- 
tial were these— 


1. That there was no copula in Paradise . ; . 119 
But this cannot be admitted : : . 120 
2. That the B.V.M. was a wife . 120 


But the perfection of the Micaela as the 
chosen of Gop excluded the perfection of her 
state as the wife of Joseph. It is, notwith- 
standing, reasonable to use the term wife . 121 

The contract of marriage by which the 
B.V.M. and 8. Joseph were united was the 
Jewish contract; and 8. Joseph, at least, 
before the Great Pentecost, was incapable of 
perfect matrimony in the Christian sense . 121 
3. That the copula is necessarily shameful — : . 122 

But if the copula was of the essence of the 

ordinance in Paradise, it is of its essence now 122 
B. The Canonists . : ἥ . 122 
Considerable diversity of ΠΣ : . 123 


Gratian. Conjugiwm wnutiatum and conjugiwm radu . 123 


CONTENTS 


The Middle Ages ee Li 
(b) Practice 


The practical ἀπ Petre in erection it the 
doctrine of the indissolubility of Christian marriage . 
a. Physical incapacity 
1. Impediment of imupotence 
The Roman law admitted oi. aa 
Christian principle asked whether the in- 
dissoluble status was present. Justinian. 
The Eastern Church. Hinkmar. The 
Canonists. Alexander III. Sixtus V. The 
present practice of the Latin Church. The 
Church of England. Theodore’s Penitential. 
The Post-Reformation period 
The continuous practice of the Christian 
Church has been to withhold or to withdraw 
sanction from any marriage in which either 
party has been certainly impotent from the 
time of solemnization onwards . 
The copula is thus treated as essential 
2. Impediment of Age 


Justinian assigned a ΣΤ age ἐδ de- 
note the attainment of puberty for public 
purposes. The later canon law. This im- 
pediment really a particular case of (1) 

By the Christian Church puberty has been 
held necessary 

The copula is thus treated as essential 
B. Absence of copula from causes other than physical 
incapacity 
1. Contracts de praesenti 
By the Roman law the contract sufficed to 
effect a marriage. The Christian Church 
tended to follow the Roman law .. 
Innocent II. Alexander ITI.’s decision that 
the copula was not essential . 
But where it had not intervened, a sitet 
person might enter upon the monastic life 
The distinction between consent de praesenti 
and de futuro : 
The later Latin Church adroite of the abe 
solution of unconsummated marriage by 
Papal dispensation 
There is thus no case of ΠῚ 
marriage which cannot be dissolved. The 
copula is in practice held essential for 
indissoluble Christian marriage nia 
2. Contracts de futuro cum subsequente copula 
Without the copula a contract de sure is 
not a marriage 
With the copula it is held to be a marriage . 


ὃ 2 


X1x 


PAGE 


. 124 


125 


. 125 
. 125 


. 125 


le 
128 


. 128 


. 129 


. 130 


190 


. 150 


. 130 


. 1380 


: 19] 


192 


. 132 


. 133 


133 
133 


᾿ 138 


xX HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Middle Ages (continued)— 
ni. Reason. 

The Latin eae who nate anaes a πο τὴς 15 entirely 
constituted in its essential character by consent de praesentv 
maintain these three propositions together : 

(a) That marriage, by Divine institution, is indissoluble. 

(b) That unconsummated marriage is dissoluble in the 
cases of 

(a) Physical incapacity. 
(8) Religious profession. 
(vy) Papal dispensation. 

(c) That consent de praesent is the sole essential for the 
marriage of baptized persons, the copula not being 
essential : 

But these three propositions cannot Be held apettier without 
a violation of the laws of thought 


B. Is MARRIAGE A CONTRACT OR AN ESTATE? 


To the Roman a contract only ‘ 
To the Christian an “ honourable estate πε οἵ Gene 


C. OF THE IMPEDIMENTS WHICH HINDER CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 


. Error 
. Force and fear 
AMEE aad To be considered in Chapter X. 


Already considered under Consent 
Impotence Already considered under the 
Age Copula 
. Condition Of ecclesiastical imposition. Not 
. Crime impediments by the law divine. 
. Abduction 1, So far as it affects consent, already 
considered ‘ 
11, So far as it does not affect consent, 
of merely ecclesiastical imposi- 
ae tion . 
~ 10, Clandestinity Not an impediment. by the law 
divine. . 
11. Existing marriage To be considered in Chapter VIL. 


12. Holy orders Of ecclesiastical imposition. Not 


13. Religious profession : : ΠΝ 
impediments by the law divine. 
14. Difference of Christian For 14 see Chapter VIIL, 


worship 


Η͂ 15. Difference of religion ΤῸ be considered in Chapter VIII. 
D : 


(ῷ Οὐ -τ σὺ σι Pow poe 


. Is MARRIAGE A SACRAMENT? : 
1, The meanings of the word Sacrament . 
i, Any ordinance or incident in which an ἀτρνῦ sit 
spiritual energy is connected with an outward and 
spiritual sign 

i. aeae mystery of the faith 
ui. “An outward and visible sign of an ard ond 
spiritual grace, ordained by Christ Himself as a 
means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to 

assure us thereof” : 


PAGE 


. 134 


. 134 


. 134 
. 135 
. 135 
. 136 


150 


137 


. 187 


151 


157 


“157 


137 


any: 
137 


137 


. 137 


137 


AST 


137 


elo? 


. 138 


. 138 


CONTENTS 


The meanings of the word Sacrament (continwed)— 
iv. “Those visible signs expressly commanded in the New 
Testament, whereunto is annexed the promise of 
true forgiveness of our sins, and of our holiness and 
joining in Christ” 
v. The outward and visible sign of ὁ an inward and spiritual 
grace 
In the sense of (i.) marriage was a sacrament at its 
institution, and without regard to Christianity. In 
the senses of (ii.) and of (v.) Christian marriage is a 
sacrament, In the senses of (iii.) and of (iv.) 
Christian marriage is not a sacrament 
2. Is grace conferred in connection with Christian marriage ? 
The grace of Christian marriage is the abiding grace of 
baptism, passed into the mould of the Divine institu- 
tion of marriage 
Individuals may “also look for a χάρισμα to enable them 
to live up to the requirements of their calling 
3. Difficultres of the teaching that Christian marriage ts a See 
A difficulty arises from the terrible contrast between the 
actual spiritual condition of the unworthy Christian 
and the holiness which baptism should imply, This 
belongs to the theology of baptism, but note 
i, The unworthy Christian, though his baptism 
adds to his condemnation, cannot shake him- 
self entirely free from the work of the Holy 
Ghost in the baptized . 
1. The necessity of an outward means “whereby the 
Christian status of a person intending marriage 
may be tested : : : 


GHAPTERD ν 


ΧΧΙ 


PAGE 


. 108 


. 138 


139 


. 145 


147 


. 148 
149 


. 149 


Ἵν 150 | 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE; 


AND OF DIVORCE a 

Difficulty of the question aloe 

Necessity of definite decision, because practically important we 151] 
Appeal to be made to the three great sources of Theology. i Holy | 

Scripture, (2) the Church in History, (3) Reason : 

1. Hoty ScrrerurE : : fe 
Gi.) S. Matt. xix. 9 is the most important passage. If this passage 
does not admit remarriage after divorce, no other passage 

necessarily does so ; - . 152 

(a) 1 υ{ιουυϊείο5 of the Text . 152 

Extraordinary variations . 152 

(a) Documentary Evidence ae . 153 

1. Manuscripts . . 153 

δ, Codex Sinaiticus. . 153 

B. Codex Vaticanus. . 154 

C. Codex Ephraemi . 154 

D. Codex Bezae : ς . 155 

I, Codex Tischendorfianus 11. . 156 

Other MSS. : . 156 


XX11. HOLY MATRIMONY 


Holy Scripture: Dufficulties of the Text (continued)— PAGE 
2. Versions ; . 156 
The Syriac Versions 107 
The Old Latin Versions eLDT 
The Egyptian Versions (1.) Memphitic at ty 
(i1.) Sahidic . 1567 
3. Fathers : . 158 
Origen . 159 
8. Clement of Alexandria . 159 
Athenagoras : . 160 
Tabular Summary of Documentary Evidence . 161 
(8) Internal Evidence . . 162 
A suggested text, which may explain the varia- 
tions of the Documentary Evidence . 162 
This text subjected to the recognised canons of 
Internal Evidence . 165 
Conclusion ; The passage has such various ‘read- 
ings and is so difficult to restore, that it cannot 
be employed for the purpose of proving any 
point of important bearing, such as the right- 
fulness of remarriage after divorce ΠΟ 
(Ὁ) Hxplanations which have been given of the 'Textus Receptus 167 
(a) Keble’s view 0 
that the words were intended not fat Ghristians. 
but for Jews 167 
(8) Von Dollinger’s view : . 168 
that πορνεία signifies pre-nuptial unchastity . 168 
(γ) The Concession ΚΞ “170 
that remarriage after divorce is admissible 10 
Difficulty arising from the statement that the re- 
marriage of the woman is adultery 1] 
(ii.) 3, Matt. v.31, 32 . . 172 
(111.) S. Mark x. 2- 12 179 
Significance of the words “ ‘adultery dine her” eehia 
(iv.) S. Luke xvi. 18 . 174 
(v.) Rom. vii. 1-4 eb 
(vi.) 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11 alge 
(vii.) 1 Cor. vii, 39 . 176 
Summary of the evidence of Holy το Ως: ΤῊ 
Putting away for adultery plainly admitted ; remarriage after 
putting away generally condemned ; no sufficient evidence 
that remarriage is permissible even in the ease of πορνεία 17 
2. THE CHURCH IN ‘History ; ra 178 
A. To the Conversion of Constantine (814 A.D. Ὁ) . 178 
Text of Authorities ; Ξ S78 
Examination of Authorities . . 190 
Introductory Statement ; 190 
Position of the early Christians with regard to the law 
of Rome 190 
Discrepancies between the Roman law and the law of 
Christ eeaksy| 


Authorities 


CONTENTS 


The Church in History (continued)— 

(a) The Roman Law 
Facility of divorce 
Divorce by mutual consent 


Divorce for adultery. The lex Julia de adultertis coercendis 194 
. 195 


(Ὁ) The Christian Law 

Points of difference 

Divorce by consent 

Divorce for adultery . 

Case of the penitent offender 

The sin of the husband 

Remarriage after divorce : 
Enumeration of points for investigation . 


Hermas 


ust : 
Adulteress 6 aks dismissed, but to be restored on. penitence 


Husband to remain unmarried : , 
S. Matt. xix. 9 
Meaning of πορνεία ‘ ; 
Spiritual adultery : : ἢ 
S. Justin Martyr : : 
Remarriage of divorced wife is adultery A 
First recorded case of separation of life 
Athenagoras 
All second marriages inadmissible ; 
Theophilus of Antioch . , 
Contrast of heathen and Christian morality 
S. Clement of Alexandria : 
S. Matt. xix. 9 ; ἢ 
Wife may be dismissed 
Remarriage after divorce not admitted 
Penitent wife to be restored 
Tertullian 


XX 
PAGE 
. 192 


. 192 
. 193 


. 195 
. 195 
. 195 


. 196 
. 196 


. 196 
9197 
. 198 
νἀ}; 
. 198 
. 198 
. 199 
. 199 
. 199 
. 200 
. 200 
. 200 
. 201] 
. 202 
. 202 
. 202 
. 202 
. 203 
. 203 
. 203 
. 204 
. 204 


Inadmissibility of remarriage after divorce assumed a as undisputed 205 


And as taught by our Lord é 
Christians divorce, but do not remarry _, 
The words dwortiwm and repudiwm : 
The teaching of the treatise Against Marcion 
Instances of. laxity 
The cause which justifies dismissal i is post- nuptial adultery 
The husband ought to put away the wife for Satins 
The wife may put away her husband 
A penitent may be restored 
Summary of the views of Tertullian 

Origen 
Instances of remarriage permitted by bishops 
Remarriage after divorce is adultery 
Πορνεία means adultery 
S. Matt. xix. 9 
Jewish and Christian discipline contrasted 


. 205 
. 206 
. 207 
. 207 
. 208 
LU 
911 
alt 
4 VAR: 
mule 
. 212 
. 212 
. 213 
. 214 
. 214 
. 214 


XXIV HOLY MATRIMONY 
The Church in History: Authorities (continued )— cea 
S. Cyprian . 214 
His silence as to the remarriage of the divorced . 215 
The De Disciplina et Bono Pudioitine . 215 
The Apostolical Canons . . 216 
No remarriage after divorce . 216 
Council of Eliberis . 216 
Women who have left their husbands without carise; ΠῚ have 
married again, not to receive communion, even at death . . 216 
Women who have left their husbands for adultery, and have 
married again, to be excluded from communion while the first 
husband lives 217 
The woman who marries another woman’s ‘husband . ΕΟ] 
Obligation to put away an adulterous wife . 218 
But not necessarily an adulterous husband, though ΤΣ sin is 
visited with penalty . 219 
Summary of the period ; 219 
1. Husband may put away for oe : . 219 
2. Husband bound to put away if the adultery continue . 220 
3. Wife may put away for adultery . 220 
4. Wife not bound to put away if the adultery continue . 221 
5. Πορνεία means adultery . 221 
6. Πορνεία never means pre-nuptial unchastity . 222 
7. Iopvela is sometimes taken to include figurative adultery . 222 
8. The guilty wife may not marry again after divorce . 222 
9. The guilty husband may not marry again after divorce . 223 
10. The innocent wife, whether (a) repudiated or (b) pase 
may not marry again . 224 
11. The innocent husband may not marry again after divorce . 225 
[There is thus no remarriage after divorce, Christian mar- 
riage is indissoluble] . 225 
12. The penitent adulteress may be restored. . 225 
13. The penitent adulteress ought to be restored . 226 
14, The penitent husband may be received . . 226 
15. The penitent husband ought to be received : . 226 
16. A wife who continues in adultery is not to be restored . 226 
1 17. No prohibition of the reception of a husband who continues in 
adultery . 226 
Es 18. No instance of any writer of the period referring to S. ‘Matt. 
— xix. 9 as to an authority for remarriage . 226 
B. From Constantine to Justinian. (314-527 A.D.) . 227 
Text of Authorities : : . 227 
Examination of Authoritres , 288 
Introductory Statement . 288 
General features of the period . 288 
Unworthy converts . 289 
Divergence of East and West . 289 
The Church in the East subservient to the State : in the 
West, independent . 290 


The Roman law of divorce 


. 290 


CONTENTS XXV 


Examination of Authorities (continued)— PAGE 
Divorce by mutual consent ϊ ἱ ‘ . 290 
Divorce on grounds of offence Ἶ ‘ : . 291 
Legislative restrictions (i.) Constantine ὃ . 291 

(ii.) Honorius and Theodosius . . 292 
(iii.) Theodosius and Valentinian . 292 
Discrepancy of Christian and secular law : : . 293 
Bearing on the Eastern Canon law . : : . 293 
Authorities 5 : : : . 294 
Council of Arles. : : . 294 
The innocent husband may not remarry : : . 294 
Additional Canons of Arles : : : . 295 
Council of Ancyra : : : : , 295 
Council of Neo-Caesarea_ . : : : . 296 
Lactantius : : . 296 
A man who puts away his wife for 3 adultery may marry 
again Ξ : . 297 


A man who marries a divorced woman is an ‘adulterer . 297 
The cause which justifies putting away is post-nuptial sin 298 


S. Basil the Great ; . 298 
Separation permitted not only for adultery, but also for 
hindrance in piety. ὃ : ‘ . 298 
Tlopveia is adultery : ‘ . 299 
S. Matt. xix. 9 not held to support remarriage : 200 
He complains of the inequality of the treatment accorded 
to men and to women : : : . 299 
Laxity of Christian society : : : . 300 
S. Basil’s concessions to this laxity . 301 
He does not approve the remarriage of the man, but he 
admits it without penalty : : : . 90] 
An adulteress may not be retained : . 302 


Absence of husband no justification of remarriage of wife 302 
Time does not remove the adulterous character of an 


adulterous connexion : : . 808 
A forsaken wife is to remain unmarried Ἷ : . 303 
Various penances : . 804 
The treatise On True ΓΤ um Virginity : . 804 
Summary of the views οἵ S. Basil : : . 805 
S. Epiphanius  . ; : : . 305 
Admits remarriage after divorce : : : . 805 
8. Gregory Nazianzen : . 806 
Roman law and conventional anyyeatiar both at fault, . 306 
He claims equality of discipline for men and women... 807 
Divergence between the secular and the Christian law of 
Divorce : : : . 307 
S. Matt. xix. 9 wanting i in clearness : : . 307 
A case of proposed divorce : ‘ . 308 
The Apostolical Constitutions : : : . 808 
S. Asterius : : : . 309 


Adultery severs marriage : : 5 . 309 


XXV1 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Examination of Authorities (continued)— PAGE 
S. Timothy of Alexandria : : : . 310 
Enigmatical judgment . : . 310 
S. John Chrysostom : ; : . 310 
No escape from the bondage of marriage : . 811 
A wife may be put away for πορνεία, but remarriage is 
not permitted , - 311 
S. Matt. xix. 9 not an authority for remarriage : . 313 
The confusion resulting from remarriage after divorce . 313 
A polluted wife not to be restored . 314 
The sin of the man no less adultery than that of the 
woman : Ε . 914 
Summary of the teaching of S. Chry sostom. ; . 314 
Theodoret ; : . 314 
Testimony not consistent, One passage favours re- 
marriage ; other passages exclude it : . 314 


Relaxation of Discipline in the East. No longer unanimous 
in refusing remarriage after divorce. The West stricter. 316 


S. Ambrose : : ty Wisrols 
Remarriage after divorce , not admitted 7 : . 318 
πορνεία means adultery . 4 ᾿ . 918 

S. Chromatius . . 319 
A wife may be put away “for adultery, but not otherwise. 

Nothing on the rl of remarriage. c . 319 

S. Jerome : : : . 319 
Case of Fabiola . 320 
Wife at liberty, perhaps bound, to put away adulterous 

husband . 320 
Antagonism of Christian and secular laws . : . 320 
Remarriage after divorce disallowed : 5 . 320 
Fabiola’s penance ; ane : . 320 
A woman remarried is to separate. . 322 
But a woman after remarriage may not return to her first 

husband . : . 322 
S. Matt. xix. 9 not considered an authority for remarriage 323 
A man is bound to put away his wife for adultery . . 324 
He may even do so for “suspicion of fornication” . . 324 
Summary of 8. Jerome’s views. : : . 324 

S. Hilary of Poictiers F . 325 
Adultery the only admitted ground of putting away . 325 

S. Augustine. . 325 
The passage in the De Fide εἰ Opertbus does not refer to 

the marriage of the baptized . . 325 
The husband may, but need not, put away for fornication 327 
A penitent wife may be restored Σ - : . 327 
A wife may put away her husband for fornication . . 327 
Remarriage after divorce disallowed ; " . 327 
Πορνεία at least includes adultery -. . 327 


Divorced wife must remain unmarried or ἘΣ ΠΡ 328 
In the Retractations these conclusions reviewed : . 398 


CONTENTS XXVil 


Exanination of Authorities (continued) — PAGE 
Whether spiritual fornication is a ground for putting away 329 
The husband is bound to put away the wife so long as 


the adultery continues : : . 329 
S. Augustine finds S. Matt. xix. 9 difficult : : . 330 
But decides against remarriage. : : . 331 
This strictness is peculiar to Christians : : . 332 
Husband and wife on equal terms . 332 
“The Sacrament of Marriage is indissoluble as long as 
both are living” ἱ . 333 
Argument for the continuance of the bond from the 
admitted adultery of one partner : : . 333 
The De Conjugus Adulterinis : . 334 
Answer to the argument of Pollentius that adultery 
dissolves marriage upso facto : . ° . 334 
Possibility of connivance of the husband . : . 335 
Summary of S. Augustine’s teaching : : . 335 
The African Code : . 336 
Remarriage after divorce disallowed, An imperial law 
desiderated . : : : ‘ . 336 
S. Innocent I. . 336 
Remarriage of women after divoree held adultery . . 337 
Husband and wife on the same footing : . 338 
But the sin of the man commonly less notorious, and 
people may not be excommunicated on suspicion . . 338 
Remarriage “on both sides” is adultery ; : , 338 
Case of civil jurisdiction : ; ; . 339 
5. Leo the Great : . 339 
In cases of remarriage during absence, the first marriage 
to be upheld : : . 339 
The Arabic Canons οἱ S. Hippolytus . 340 
Case of a Christian who casts off a concubine, and marries 340 
Ambrosiaster . . 342 
“ Husband may remany, if he have put away an offend- 
ing wife” . . 342 
The wife may not remarry, if she have sent away her 
husband for fornication or apostasy : : . 342 
The Opus Imperfectum in Matthaewm : . 342 
Husband bound to put away an adulterous wall : . 342 
Summary of the period : : : : . 342 
1. A husband may put away for Tee Σ : : "515 
2. A husband ought to put away for πορνεία, (S. Augustine other- 
wise in his earlier years.) ‘ ὃ . 343 


3. A wife may put away an adulterous husband. But conven- 
tional feeling in the East, and in Gaul, strongly opposed to it 343 

4, The only writer who holds that a wife is bound to put away an 
adulterous husband is 8. Jerome ‘ : . 343 
Πορνεία means adultery : . 343 
. No authority takes πορνεία as pre- -nuptial unchastity : . 343 
. Some writers take it to include spiritual fornication : . 344 


~ID σι 


XXVIil HOLY MATRIMONY 
Semmary of the perrod (continued)— PAGE 
8, 9, 10, 11. In the West all remarriage after divorce is excluded. 
In the East the question is open as regards the husband . 344 
12. Adulterous wife not by most admitted to restoration on peni- 
tence. Theodoret and 8. Augustine for restoration : . 344 
13. S. Augustine holds that she ought to be restored . ‘ . 345 


14,15. No question but that the penitent husband might be received 345 
16. No authority allows the guilty wife to be restored so long as 


the adultery continues : . 345 
17. The husband who continued in his sin was commonly received 
by the wife . 345 
18. S. Matt. xix. 9 not cited by any writer to support remarriage . 346 
C. The East after Justinian ‘ Ξ : é . 346 
Text of some authoritres : : ; : . 346 
Introductory Statement : . 347 
Great laxity of the Eastern Churches as to divorce and remarriage 347 
(i.) Dworce by mutual consent . : - . 348 
Completely recognised by Roman law ; . 348 
Consistently opposed by Christian teachers, even those not 
the most strict . 348 
Lactantius. S. Asterius. ‘8. Epiphanius, 5, Basil . : . 949 
Admitted by Justinian in 22nd Novel , . 349 
Forbidden by Justinian in 117th Novel (542 A.D. i. . 349 
Such divorces notwithstanding valid, though irregular . 350 
Again legalised by Justin 11. : ὲ . 350 
ἘΣΤΙ by the Council ὧν T mane : ; . 350 
Further enactments of the Emperors . 351 
Divoree by mutual consent finally abolished at the end of 
the ninth century : ‘ : . 352 
Faithfulness of the Church on this point : ς . 902 
(11.) Dworce on specified grounds . : . 352 


Lax provisions of the secular law not opposed by the Church 352 
Sufficient to state the grounds of divorce actually admitted 353 


A. Grounds for divorce with penalty attached : : . 909 
1. High Treason : . 354 
2. Designs by either of the partners on the life of the other 354 
3. Adultery . : . 355 
4, Circumstances affording presumption of ‘adultery, or 
equivalent to adultery : : : . 356 
5. The procuring of abortion : a Shy 
6. Difference of religion arising from the conversion to 
Christianity of one of the partners : . 357 
7. The reception by either partner of his or her own ‘child 
from the baptismal font : ; : . 358 
B. Grounds for divorce without penalty attached : . . 354 
1. Impotence . : ‘ : . 359 
2. Absence without tidings caphraly and slavery . . 360 
3. Insanity : : : . 361 
4, Leprosy : : . 962 
5. The undertaking of monastic obligations ς : . 362 
6. Episcopal Consecration : Ἶ : . 362 


CONTENTS ΧΧΙΧ 


D. The West after Justinean 
Text of Authoritres 
Examination of Authorities 

Secular dynasties in the West had to accept the teaching of 


PAGE 


. 362 
. 362 


. 373 


the Church : 373 
The subjects of the German. kings of the West were under 
personal law : . 874 
The codes of the Roman subjects of the German Ikings : . 374 
The code of Justinian in the courts of Italy . 375 
The forum externum of the Bishop . 375 
(i.) Italy . 376 
8. Gregory the Great (A.D. 590—a. D. 604) . 376 
Divorce for the purpose of entering the monastic life not 
permitted . 376 
Divorce only admitted for fornication aya 
Remarriage not touched upon . 377 
S. Gregory 11. (4.p. 716) 5 BY: 
Against divorce with remarriage generally but remarkable 
exception made when the wife is “infirmitate correpta” . 377 
Influence of Theodore . 378 
Zacharias (A.D. 747) . 378 
Remarriage disallowed . 378 
Council of Friuli (a.p. 791) . . 379 
Remarriage disallowed to both : . 379 
S. Matthew xix. 9 referred to as difficult ; but S. Jer erome’s 
opinion taken as conclusive that there may not be 
remarriage . 379 
Council of Rome (A.D. 826), ‘confirmed at Council of Rome 
A.D. 853 : . 379 
Of doubtful interpretation . 379 
In Italy it may be said that on the whole the second five 
centuries of Christianity maintained the indissolubility 
of Christian marriage . 380 
(11.) The Churches beyond the Alps 380 
The people lived under two systems of personal law 
(1) Roman, (2) Frankish . : : . 380 
The Roman codes . : . 380 
The facility of divorce by mutual consent remained . 380 
Divorce by one party for offences by the other was also as 
under the older Roman legislation . 381 
The Frankish and German laws . 381 
Equal facility of divorce 381 
Consequently, as in the East, a conflict between the Christian 
and the secular laws was inevitable. Conditions in the 
West more favourable . 382 
Some Western Councils before Justinian may ‘best. be con- 
sidered here . 383 
Council of Angers (A.D. 458) . . 383 
Remarriage disallowed . 383 
Council of Vannes (A.D. 468) : 383 
_ The innocent husband who remarries is not rejected from 
communion . : ‘ . 383 


XXX HOLY MATRIMONY 


The West after Justinian (continued) — PAGE 
Council of Agde (a.D. 506) . 384 
Remarriage apparently admitted in approved ὁ cases . 384 
Council of Orleans (A.D. 533) : . 384 
Divorce for supervenient infirmity disallowed. . 385 
Council of Nantes (4.D. 658, but canons are later) . 385 
Remarriage disallowed , . 385 
Twelfth Council of Toledo (A.D. 681) . : : . 385 
Husband may put away for fornication. Remarriage not 
mentioned . 386 
Council of Soissons (A.D. 744) : : . 386 
Husband may only put away for fornication. Remarriage 
not mentioned . 386 
Terrible state of the Frankish Churches . 386 
Council of Verberies (A.D. 753) . 387 
Remarriage admitted . 387 
Council of Compiegne (A.D. 756) . 387 
Remarriage admitted in certain cases . 388 
The Chur ch gave way unduly to the secular authorities 
when Pippin was the great patron of the Church . 388 
Council of Aachen (A.D. 789) . 389 
Remarriage disallowed . 389 
Council of Paris (A.D. 829) . 389 
Remarriage disallowed . 389 
Synod of Worms (A.D. 829) . . 389 
Excerpta Canonum of Lothair I. . 889 
Case of Lothair and Theutberga . 389 
Council of Aachen (A.D. 862) . 389 
Council of Bourges (A.D. 1031) . 389 
Remarriage possibly admitted . 390 
Council of Rheims (a.D. 1049) . 390 
Remarriage disallowed . 390 
Council of Tours (A.D. 1060) . 390 
Remarriage disallowed . 390 
Council of Rouen (A.D. 1072) . 390 
Remarriage disallowed . 390 
The Canonists ; . 390 
The Codex Dionysio- Pred ΤῊΣ 500 
Benedict the Levite tool 
Marriage indissoluble . 891 
The Pseudo-Isidorian Collection 30] 
Rhabanus Maurus (a.D. 778-856) . 392 
Marriage indissoluble . . 392 
Hinkmar of Rheims (a.D. 806-882) . . 392 
Marriage indissoluble 5 . 392 
Ivo of Chartres (A.D. 1117) . 392 
Only admits the authorities which take the πος line . 392 
Gratian (A.D. 1139) . 392 
Marriage indissoluble . 392 


CONTENTS XXXI1 


The West after Justinian (continued) — PAGE 
Summary of the period . 393 
Long struggle with the license of the secular laws and the 
lax customs of the people : : : : . 393 
Occasional tendency to give way . 393 
On the whole the primitive tradition faithfully guarded . 394 
From the time of Gratian the Churches of the West have 
declined to recognise remarriage after divorce . : . 394 
EK. The Churches of the British Isles. Ξ : ‘ . 394 
Text of Authorities . : : : : . 394 
Ezamination of Authoritres : . 408 
The morality of the early Celtic populations very comupt 408 
The Teutonic peoples comparatively pure : . 410 
The 2nd Synod of 8. Patrick : : . 411 
Remarriage after divorcee for adultery permitted : . 411 
The Penitential of Vinniaus (S. Finian c. A.D. 500) : . 411 
Remarriage disallowed : : . 412 
Canones Wallici (c. Α.Ὁ. 550-650) : . 412 
Adultery to be visited with death (probably ‘inoperative). 
Marriage with a female slave indissoluble . . 412 
Gildas (a.p. 547). : : . 412 
Licentiousness of the Welsh kings . : ξ . 418 
The Roman Mission of 5. Augustine . : : . 413 
Question of remarriage not entertained , . 413 
Theodore of Tarsus, Abp. of Canterbury A.D. 668- 690 . . 413 
Council of Hertford (A.D. 673) disallowed remarriage under 
Theodore’s presidency . . 414 


But Theodore’s personal convictions ‘shewn i in ‘the Peniten- 
tial, which is probably the reproduction by a compiler of 
Theodore’s genuine decisions : : . 414 
A man may dismiss an adulterous wife and marry again . 415 
A guilty wife may on penitence marry again after five years 415 
A wife may not put away her husband for fornication 
except perhaps for a monastery . . 415 
Husband or wife whose partner has entered a ‘monastery 
may marry again, except when the marriage is a second 


marriage . 415 
When a man is convicted of crime, ᾿ς his wife may marry 
again after a year . 416 
Husband may be reconciled to an adulterous wile who has 
been put away, but must do penance . 416 
Divorce by mutual consent admitted, either for monastic 
profession, or on the ground of physical incapacity . . 416 
Other concessions : . 416 
The Penitential not altogether consistent with itself . . 417 
The provisions of the Penitential are derived from Eastern 
sources . 417 
Comparison of the Penitential with the rules of the Eastern 
Churches : . 418 


These provisions do not occur again | in the English Church 
in any authoritative form ἣ : ; . 418 


XXXil HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Churches of the British Isles (continued)— PAGE 
The Penitential of Bede (A.D. 735) is without Men 
although incomplete . . 418 
The Penitential of Egbert (4.p. 732- 766) omits them . . 419 
The Dialogue of Egbert (A.D. 732-766) . 419 
Remarkable judgment as to divorce for ‘supervenient 
incapacity : : : . 419 
The Judicoum Clementis (A.D. 693) ; : ; . 420 
Remarriage of the divorced disallowed ; : . 421 
Remarriage after capture of the wife admitted . ὃ . 421 
Canons of 8. Adamnan (A.D. 679-704) . A : . 421 
Remarriage after divorce disallowed . : : . 421 
Reference to Theodore ; : - : . 422 
The Venerable Bede : : : : . 422 
Remarriage disallowed : . 422 
“ First Synod of 8. Patrick” (early in the 8th century) . 422 
Adulteress to be excommunicated : . 423 
Laws of Howel Dda (a.D. 928) : . 423 
The lowest point reached by Christian legislation : . 423 
Probationary marriages : : ; : . 424 
Regulations for divorce : : : . 424 
Laws of the Northumbrian Priests (A.D. 950) : : . 425 
Condemnation of a priest who divorces and remarries . . 425 
Archbishop Dunstan’s Penitential (a.D. 963) Ξ : . 425 
Condemnation of remarriage . 425 


Laws Ecclesiastical and Canons of Eanham (A.D. 1006-1013) . 425 
Against marriage with a divorced woman; and against 


bigamy : : . 425 
Laws Ecclesiastical of Cnute (a. D. 1017) . : : . 425 
Ib. 425 
From the Norman conquest no further question in the English 
Church . : : : ; . 425 
Divorce a vinculo is inadmissible : : : . 426 
The period of the Reformation . 426 
The Reformatio Legum Eeclesiasticarum (never i in force) . 426 
Very lax as to divorce. : . 426 
The Institution of a Christian man (a. D. 1537) . : . 426 
Marriage 1Π 6 1550111018 , : , 426 
The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition (A. D. 1545) : . 426 
τς " : . 426 
The Form for the Solemnization of Matrimony : : . 426 
Tb. : : : . 426 
Divorces by Act of Parliament : : : = by! 


By English Law, divorces a mensa et thoro. Also declarations 

of nullity. But no dissolution of the bond prior to 1857 , 427 
The Divorce Act of 1857 Ἵ ,. 429 
Other Divorce Acts in the British Empire and elesw Hert . 429 
The Church of England has not altered her law. Marriage 

is indissoluble . 429 
Serious complications from the conflict of the laws secular 

and the laws ecclesiastical . 3 F : . 429 


CONTENTS XXXill 


The Churches of the British Isles (continued) PAGE 
The Lambeth Conference of 1888 ; . 430 


Divorce only for adultery. Guilty party not to remarry. 
Innocent party remarrying not to be refused the Sacraments 430 


Summary of the ia of the British Churches. - . 431 
(111.) Reason : : . 432 
Only two points of enquiry will be touched upon : . 433 

1. What has reason to say to the contention that the act of 
adultery ipso facto dissolves the bond of marriage? . . 433 


2. If rt be granted that the guilty partner 1s so bound that re- 
marriage after divorce would be on his or her part 
adultery, how is tt possible that the wmnocent party can 
be free to remarry? , 434 

Summary of the entire evidence as to the indissoluble character of 


the marriage bond . : . 435 
CHAPTER VIII. 
OF THE REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS; 
AND OF MIXED MARRIAGES — 
Introductory Statement : : : . 438 


Marriage after the Fall and outside Christianity ‘ . 438 
Such marriage is to be respected; yet not essentially indissoluble . 439 
Inequality of the union when one of the partners has been baptized 439 
Remarriage admissible; yet the earlier marriage had its sacred 


character. : : ; . 440 
Difficulty referred to ὅ. Paul : A : : . 440 
I. Holy Scripture . : ᾿ : : . 441 
(i.) 1 Cor. vii. 12-16 . αν 7} 

a. δεδούλωται. . 441 
(a) “not bound ” to insist on cohabitation is an obvious truism 442 

(β) οὐ δεδούλωται-: ἐλεύθερός ἐστιν. Freedom to marry ; . 442 

(vy) Contrast of v. 2 and v. 15 : : : . 442 

(6) Christian authority admits remarriage : : . 442 

(ε) as do the principles assumed - : : . 443 

ὃ. χωρίζεται, depart : , : . 443 
S. Chrysostom understands 8 ; the cause of separation : 443 


If the unbeliever is in hearty agreement to abide, the Christian 
partner may continue the union. If not, he or she is free to 
marry again . 444 

The concession lies in the permission given to theChristian partner 
to continue the union under necessarily unequal conditions . 445 


Sanctification of the wife and of the children . 445 

Not to be inferred that a Christian might after baptism 
marry ἃ person unbaptized | : : . 445 
(ii.) 1 Cor, vii. 39 : . 446 
Commonly understood to bar marriage with non-Chr suians 446 
(iii.) 2 Cor, vi. 14 to vii. 1 . 446 
_ May or may not have special reference to mixed marriages 447 
(1) ἑτεροζυγοῦντες 7 ot ° . 448 
(2) the “temple of Gop i : . 448 


Nothing in Holy Scripture to warrant the marriage of a Christian 
with a non-Christian . : : : - . 448 
c 


XXX1V HOLY MATRIMONY 


PAGE 


Il. The Church in History . 449 
A. To the Conversion of Doreen (A.D. 314) . 449 
Teat of Authorities : . 449 
Examination of Authorities ; . 454 
Instances of marriage between Christians and non- 
Christians . , 454 
Eunice . . 454 
Marcia (A.D. 183) . . 454 
S. Caecilia (A.D. 180 or 930). . 455 
Euphrosyne ‘ . 456 
S. Juliana (A.D. 991. 311) . 456 
S. Susanna (A.D. 294) . 457 
S. Anastasia (A.D. 300) . 458 
“Οἱ these Eunice and 5. Anastasia were probably con- 
verted after marriage and content to abide. Marcia 
and Euphrosyne completed the union in spite of the 
difference of faith. S. Caecilia, 8. Julia, 5. Susanna 
resisted the unequal yoke . 458 
Pescennia Quodvultdeus (A.D. 227), : . 459 
No instance of a mixed marriage where the husband 
was the Christian and the wife the unbeliever . 459 
Writers and Councils . 459 
S. Justin Martyr . 459 
Passage applicable rather to the ΑΒ τε οἵ Divorce . 459 
Tertullian . 460 
Distinguishes between the concession to converts, and 
the marriages of Christians to non-Christians . 460 
Converts permitted to abide: mixed marriages con- 
demned . . 461 
S. Cyprian (A.D. 248- 258) ; ; . 461 
Condemns mixed marriages. Ranks them among the 
offences which deserved the Decian persecution , 461 
S. Hippolytus (a.D. 213-223) . 462 
Ladies of senatorial rank permitted by Callistus to 
form unions with slaves, doubtless in preference to 
marriage with non- Christians . 462 
Council of Eliberis (A.D. 306-324) . 463 
Marriage of the unbaptized treated in certain cases as 
dissoluble . 463 
Severe canon against a Christian woman n who should 
marry a man deserting a blameless wife who was 
willing to abide . 463 
Difficulty of marriage questions in the case of 
catechumens . 464 
Marriage of Christian virgins with Gentiles forbidden 466 
Other regulations . 466 
Summary of Aig . 468 
(a) Remarriage of Converts . 468 
No voice denies that the converted partner may 
continue in marriage with the non-Christian 
partner . 468 


CONTENTS “ ἤχχχν 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
The Remarriage of Converts is pt a (Eli- 

beris) . 468 
but the ΠΕΣ of ἃ τεῦ ΤΙΝ 15 ἀπῆν. 

hensible! τὸς: ; : : . 468 

(0) Mixed Marriages. : . 468 


were sometimes effected. “They were, however, 
distinctly against the mind of the Church, 
though not in every case visited with ΕΘ 
; : : . 468 


condemnation . 


B. From Constantine to Justinian } ; : . 469 
Text of Authorities : : : . . 469 
Examination of Authorities : : : . 493 
Introductory Statement. : . 493 


Mixed marriages, though not ayajoiventett fecome common 493 
With regard to the remarriage of converts, discipline 


becomes more rigorous : ? ; . 493 
Instances of mixed marriages : : ; . 493 
Nonna (A.D. 374) . ; ᾿ ; . 494 
S. Monnica (A.D. 374) . ; : : . 404 
Laeta (A.D. 404) : : : : . 495 
Synesius (A.D, 403) : 2 : : . 495 
Secular Legislation : . 495 
No secular prohibition of marriages ἜΤ ΠΝ Γ τ πε 
and Pagans . 495 
τε τος between Chr ΤΠ and Jews forbidden. . 495 
Also marriages between Romans and barbarians. . 496 
Christian Authorities Ξ : ; ; . 496 
Council of Arles (A.D. 314) : . 496 
Baptized women united to Gentiles to be face some 
time excluded from communion i : . 496 
Council of Laodicea (A.D. 3850). : . 497 
Marriage of Christians with heretics ΠΣ ἢ i . 497 
The African Code : : . 497 
Forbids the sons of the clergy to marry Gentiles . 497 
S. Basil ; : . 497 
Converted wife to Aine that ans may save ies Peenend 497 
S. Chrysostom : . 497 
The continuance of ce an an ΤΠ τς 15 
the great concession : . 497 
Separation permissible if the pee be He cause 
of it ; : i : . 498 
Remarriage also Bae ible : : . 498 
Χωρίζεσθαι-ε ἴο be the cause of separation : . 499 
S. Ambrose (A.D. 374-397) j : . 499 


Contrasts the dissolubility of such marriages eh 
the indissolubility of Christian marriage : . 499 


Christians forbidden to marry the unbaptized . . 500 
c 2 


XXXV1 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
S. Jerome : : : . 500 
Marriages with Ethnies forbidden ; ; : . 500 
The converted partner toabide . 501 
Prevalence of mixed marriages in the Roman Church . 502 
Women still in.a majority . 502 
Divorce is open to the married convert, and probably also 
remarriage. i . 502 
Marriage before baptism τ no bar to the priesthood ; . 502 
Ambrosiaster : - : . 503 
Freedom of remarriage strongly stated : ΕΠ 008 
Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) : , . 508 
Sons of clergy not to marry Gentiles or heretics : . 503 
S. Augustine : : ‘ . 504 
Dismissal of unbelever permissible ‘ . 504 
Because the continuance of the marriage 1s eoureetied only, 
not commanded ; : / : . 505 
Unbelief is a spiritual fornication . . 505 
The counsel to abide is not on account of the vinculum, but 
that the unbeliever may be won to Christ . ; . 507 


Subject to reservations, though the Christian convert might 
put away, he might not marry again. Argument from 
analogy of fornication . : . 508 
S. Augustine’s sense of the difficulty of the subject 5 . 509 
Not fair to press too far a conclusion arrived at by the way 509 
The prohibition of remarriage the contemporary practice . 510 
- The catechumens of the fourth coma ; : 5. 510 
Concessions : . 511 
A catechumen who had lived in an unsanctioned u union, 
if at his death he could not express himself, might be 


baptized .. oll 
A catechtimen who had remarried after divorcing his 

: wife for adultery not to be rejected : : . 512 
_ Non-Christian marriage not indissoluble as is Christian 

marriage : . . O13 

_ 8. Augustine’s arguments mutually destructive : . 514 
He is “undecided as regards mixed marriages entered upon 

as such, but firm in a res instance, : . 514 

5. Innocent I. “. : . 516 


Von Dollinger’s ΠΕ of the puthorities upon the 
digamy of “the clergy. In the reckoning of digamy, were 
marriages entered upon and concluded before baptism 
to be taken into account? The Eastern Church does 


not reckon them, the Western does ὃ . 516 
Theodoret (A.D. 387- -453) : “019 
Separation is open if caused by the unbeliever ; alo 

_ Remarriage not touched upon : : . 519 
. Mixed marriages disallowed , ; ; . 519 
Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) Ἶ . 519 


. Children of clergy not to marry “a heretic, Ὁ or a Jew, ora 
Greek ” : : : 4 : . 519 


CONTENTS... - XXXVIL 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
Summary of pervod ‘ : : ; 519 
Mixed marriages of frequent « occurrence. Councils 
halting and ‘partial . : i . 520 
Some indecision of theory : .- ᾿ . ὅ20 
Causes—(1) Catechumens : . ὅ20 
(2) Christian parents impatient ‘of restraint . 521 
(3) Confusion of heathens and heretics . 521 


But writers of weight oppose the prevalent laxity . 521 
Remarriage of converts not favoured. Reason found 


in the catechumens  . . 522 
Butright of remarriage maintained byv: various writers 523 
C. The East after Justinian Ξ ᾿ , : . 523 
Text of Authorities : : : ᾿ . 523 
Examination of Authorities : : : . 525 
Mixed marriages forbidden : . 525 
Divorce and remarriage of converts disallowed Ὁ, . 525 
The Nicene-Arabic canons (compiled about 600) . . 525 
Mixed marriages to be abandoned before restoration 
to communion : : ‘ : . 925 
The Civil Law : . 526 
Mixed marriages irregular but not invalid : . 526 
The Council in Truilo (A. D. 692) . : ‘ . 526 
Mixed marriages null and void : . 526 
Married converts may continue their union ; . 526 
Theophylact . : : . 527 
Mixed marriages null and void 527 
Married converts may continue their union, or, if the 
unbeliever χωρίζεται, sever them . πὴ 
The Eastern Churches recognise difference of belief as a 
ground of divorce. ; : : . 527 
Instances of mixed marriages , : . 528 
D. The West after Justincan ; : : : . 529 
Text of Authorities : ‘ : . 529 
Examination of Aioriies. : C2046 
a. The five centuries after J ΤΙΝ : : . 546 
(1) Spain ca 4 O47 
4th Council of Toledo (a. ΠῚ 633) ‘ 547 
A converted Jewess must leave her husband 
unless he will become aconvert , . 547 
Remarriage presumably admitted , . 548 
Council of Tarragona (A.D. 1239) : . 548 
Mixed unions forbidden : . 548 
(2) Italy and Germany 549 
The indissolubility of marriage contracted 
before baptism 1s maintained ‘ . 549 
The Council of Tribur (A.D. 895) : . 549 
(3) England : : . 550 
The Penitential of Theodore. : . 550 
Difficulty of interpretation . , . 550 
(4) Hinemar (A.D. 806-882) . . 551 


Separation of life open to married converts. 
Remarriage presumably admitted . . 551 


XXXVlil HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
b. The period of the Canonists . ‘ 1 : . 551 
Hugo of 8. Victor (A.D. 1133-1141) . . 552 
“The injury of the Creator dissolves the right of marriage” 552 
The marriage of the unbaptized is not indissoluble . 553 

Injuria Creatoris is the fallen state of those not restored by 
baptism : ᾿ : : : . 554 
Gratian ; 7 . 554 
The Decretum. Tts saiite ity supreme F . 554 

The marriage is indissoluble when the unbelieving ἔτ τς 
15 ἘΠΕ ὙὉ to abide 5 : . 555 
When he departs there is no ἘΠΕ ΠΕ ten ; . 556 
Roland . : : ; ‘ . 556 


The believing partner may require a separation ἦν life, 
but if he does so, he may not marry again except in 
one of three specified cases : 
1. If the unbelieving partner is not willing to abide . 556 


2. If he worships idols : : : . 556 
3. If he impels to moral crime . 556 
Indissolubilty .of Christian marriage not ΠῚ by the 
apostasy of one of the partners . : : . 557 
Peter Lombard. : : ‘ . 557 
As Gratian ἢ : 3 : : . 557 
Bernard of Pavia . 557 
No ground of severance Ras ἘΠΕῚ justify ΤΥ τοτοςς 
if the unbeliever is willing to abide , . 557 
Case of the unbelieving wife subsequently ΤΥ ΠΕ . 557 
Robert of Malmsbury ; J ; : . 558 
Confusion of Dee : : : : . 558 
Tancred . . 558 
Three cases formulated in which ane convened π᾿ 
may remarry . é δ . . 558 
Innocent III. (The Deevotaisy : - : . 559 


If the unbeliever be not willing to abide, 
(1) in any case, or 
(2) without blasphemy of the Divine name, or 
(3) without drawing the converted partner on to mortal sin, 


The converted partner may marry again ‘ : . 559 
The subsequent conversion of the unbelieving partner 

establishes no right to reclamation of marriage. - 559 
These rulings have been the great authority of the Western 

Church for the last six centuries . : ᾿ . 560 

S. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1224-1274) . : ὲ . 560 

S. Bonaventure (A.D. 1221-1274) , ; . 560 


Bothadmit the essential dissolubility of non- ‘Christine marriage 560 


CONTENTS ΧΧΧΙΧ 


The Church in History (οογιἐἰγυνιοα)-- PAGE 
ὁ. Modern Missions. ‘ : - . 560 
America and India (A.D. 1500) : : : . 560 

The interpellatio : : : : . 561 

Paul III. (4.p. 1537) : ‘ . 561 


A polygamist convert, who cannot ΠΝ ation of 
his wives he married first, may choose any one of 


them : ‘ ; : : . 561 
Pius V. (4.D. 1571) ; : . 562 
A polygamist convert may retain a enngeian ite in 
preference to the first, if unconverted . : . 562 
Gregory XIII. (a.p. 1572-1585) : . 562 
The wterpellatoo may be dispensed wih when it is 
practically impossible to make it d : . 562 
Council of Lima (A.D. 1582) ; . 568 
A compromise between Spanish prohibit agi the 
more ordinary permission to abide : : . 563 


Sacred Congregation of the Council (A.D. 1603) ἢ . 564 
Proof demanded of the will of the unbelieving partner 564 
At what point of time does the union lose its binding 


character? . : . 565, 
Case of Abraham and Rites Esther "a Dz 1726) , . 565 
First marriage maintained, because the converted part- 
ner had not remarried ὁ ξ : . 566 
Benedict XIV. : ‘ : . 567 
Case of Borach cen (A.D. 1758) 4 ‘ . 567 
Indissolubility of non-Christian marriage ounce . 567 
Missions of Cochin (A.D. 1759) ‘ ὃ . ὅθ8 
Duration of marriage dependent on caprice of er 569 
Congregation de propaganda Fide (A.D. 1816) . ; . 569 
Various decisions : : ‘ : . 569 
Synod of Su-chu (A.D. 1803) : . 570 


Difficulty of reconciling the rule about interpellation 
with the permission to polygamists to retain the Chris- 


tian wife . ; ἶ : : - 01} 
d. The later English Church : eo 
Nothing on the point in the law and ἀϑρρ τς οἱ ΠῚ “72 
Mixed Marriages ; P : : ‘ more 
Such marriages treated as null and void; but Papal dis- 
pensation has introduced exceptions . : : . 573 
Council of Agde (A.D. ὅ06). ‘ : . 573 
Second Council of Orleans (A.D. ὅ99). : ; . 573 
Council of Clermont (A.D. 535) , : : . ὅ79 
Third Council οἱ  rleans (A.D. 538) ‘ : ὃ . 573 
Fourth Council Orleans (Α.Ὁ. ὅ41) , : ; . 573 


Third Council Toledo (A.D, 589) : ; ’ . 573 


xl 


HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
Fourth Council of Toledo (a.D. 633) ; ! . 573 

All prohibit mixed marriages. : ; . 573 

Instances of mixed marriages é : - . 574 

Clotilda and Bertha . : ‘ : . 574 

The Canonists . : : : : . 574 

All prohibit mixed marriages. . 574 

The prohibition rather by customary law than by ¢ canon 575 

Papal dispensations admitted since a.D. 1669 : . 575 


Mixed marriages by Papal dispensation may be 
followed by separation, but not by remarriage . . 576 


Summary of the pertod ὃ , : word 
a. Remarriage of converts : : : UCL 
b. Mixed marriages : ; ; ; . 578 
Summary of the whole historical retrospect . : . 579 


What constitutes a Christian for the purposes of marriage? . moOlg 


The historic churches reply that a Christian is one bap- 


tized with valid baptism d Saye) 

Mixed marriages between Catholics and heretics irregular, 
but not null : . 580 

In ancient days no clear distinction between heretic and 
heathen ; : : : : . 580 
The Canonists. 8] 
Adequate attention first given in the 17th century . . 581 
Benedict XIV. (4.p. 1741) : : . 581 
Validity of heretical marriages recognised : . 583 
In the East the same conclusion . . 583 

In the English Church the validity of Noriconformist 
marriages accepted without question ‘ . 583 
111. Reason : : . 583 
(i.) Mixed Marriages too unequal to be admitted : . 584 
(α) Sentinlly ἐς ὃ ‘ . 584 
(b) from difference of conditions | : . 584 
(1.) A special grace supplied to the married convert i . 584 

(11.) This grace requires the convert to continue the union if 
there be no sufficient ground of. separation : . 585 

(iv.) But the requirement comes from the grace, and not from 
the indissolubilty of the prior tie i - ΘῈ: 

(v.) If there be ground for separation, the convert may marry 
again ‘ . 585 

(vi.) If the union be continued το baptism, it becomes 
indissoluble for the Christian . . 586 

(vii.) Cases not covered by the permission to continue. c or not 
requiring such continuance Ἢ 3 ; . 586 
(a) Union with ἃ polyandrous wife. : . 586 
(Ὁ) The temporary marriages of the Shia Musulmans 586 
(ὁ) The wife of a polygamous husband . ‘ . 586 
(d) The wife of an adulterous husband . Ὶ . 586 


Practical conclusions. on the whole survey . i as 089 


CONTENTS xli 


CHAPTER IX. 
OL POLYGAMY. 


mgt ΤΕ 


Introductory Statement ‘ ‘ . 591 | 
It follows from the conclusions meee at eat ict to τ ΤῊΣ ' 
that polygamy is inadmissible to Christians 591 
Polygamy was suffered in a fallen state without added condem- 
nation : : ‘ : ‘ : . 592 
I. Holy Scripture : : : : : . 592 
Gy) ALAR 1 eae : ; . 592 
Successive, not concurrent marriages : : . 592 
This the view of East and West alike ‘ . 593 
Only two writers understand concurrent marriages, 
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodoret ‘ 209s 
ὐπὸ -. : ; ; : . 594 
(iti) S. Matt. xix. 5.. ie DOL 
_ (iv.) Eph. v. 23 ‘ . 594 
These passages exclude all thought of polygamy, but 
hardly amount to argument . . 594 
_ The New Testament scriptures are silent on the subject of 
concurrent polygamy . : : : . 595 
II. The Church in History . : ‘ . 595 
(i.) Polygamy has never yet ὍΣΣ α foothold ‘ 595 


Reasons—(a) Early Church not confronted with polygamy 595 
(b) Question answered by implication in the 
received teaching as to 


(a) Adultery and divorce : . 595 
(8) Second marriages. : 090 
(a) Early Church not confronted with polygamy : . 595 
Roman law free from the recognition of polygamy . 595 
Diocletian and Maximian (A.D. 385). : . 596 
Valerian (A.D. 258) . ὃ : : . 596 
Proposed enactment for Julius Caesar . 5 . 596 
S. Augustine : : : : . 596 
Jewish practice .. : ! : . 596 
Polygamy rare . : sae 
(b) Answer by implication in the ἜΝ εὐ ἤ ἢ : . 597 
(a) As to adultery and divorce . 597 
eeu arn xl, ai as possible against 

α woman ΄. . 597 
Hermas** ‘ : : .. 598 
S. Justin Martyr ‘ i ; . 598 
S. Clement of Alexandria ‘ : . 598 
Tertullian =. : ‘ . 598 
Forty-seventh Apostolic Canon . ‘ . 598 

Council of Eliberis } . 599 | 


In excluding remarriage after divoree, these 
- authorities ὦ Sortrort exclude polygamy . 599 | 
Lactantius . é . . . 599 


xlil HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
S. Asterius : ; ‘ : : . 599 
S. Epiphanius. : : : . 599 
Ambrosiaster : . 600 
These authorities, while admitting re remarriage after divorce, 
no less assert principles which exclude polygamy . . 600 
(8) As to Second Marriages : . 600 
\ Teaching of early Church characterized by extraordinary 
} rigorism Σ . 600 
This teaching incompatible ‘with the admission of polygamy 
many way. : : : . 600 
Text of Authorities : : : : . 601 
Examination of Authorities : : : . 699 
Hermas : . 609 
Second marriages rather permitted than approved ; . 609 
Athenagoras : : . 609 
Second marriages distinctly unlawful : 7 . 609 
S. Irenaeus : : . 609 
The woman of Samaria guilty of ᾿ fornication in many 
nuptials”. : : : : . 609 
S. Clement of Alexandria . : : . 610 
Second marriage a concession to infirmity : : . 610 
Tertullian . . 610 
Second marriage is sin. "(This view condemned by the 
Church) τ . 610 
Monogamia and ΕΣ . : : aval 
} Origen . Ὁ] 
Ϊ Digamists not of the Church, but ὦ ‘of the second degree” 611 
Council of Neo-Caesarea (A.D. 315) . G1 
Penance for succesSive marriages . : - ΟῚ 
Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314) : ‘ , «015 
Penance : :- 3 : «612 
Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) , : . 612 
The Kathari, on being converted, are to promise to com- 
municate with digamists ‘ . , . 612 
Council of Laodicea : . 612 
Second marriages may be tandéned after a ene period 
' of prayer and fasting . . 612 
Thus to the fourth century it is not possible that polygamy 
should have been suffered in the Church . 01. 
S. Basil ν : : . 612 
Digamists penitents for one year. : : 015 
Trigamists are suffered contaminations : 2 G13) 
Successive marriages beyond trigamy are bestial . . 613 
S. Cyril of Jerusalem : : : : . 614 
Second marriage a concession : : : . 615 
S. Gregory Nyssen : . 615 
No polygamy among Christians of id erusalem : ~ 615 
S. Epiphanius . . Ξ . . 615 


Second marriage to be tolerated , ‘ : . 615 


CONTENTS xliil 


The Church in History (continued)— PAGE 
S. Chrysostom . ; . 616 
Second marriage admirable, but first superior to it . 616 
8. Jerome : : ᾿ : . 616 
Advice to Salvina ; : : : . 616 
To Ageruchia . : ; . 617 
Second marriage only better than sin ‘ ’ Bol 
S. Ambrose 1 : χ ΠῚ 
Second marriages neither prohibited nor counselled OL 
Ambrosiaster ; 1 G17 
Second marriages not solemnized with the benediction 2017 
S. Augustine : : ; Sols 
Second marriages less highly honoured ας : . 618 
Statuta ecclesve antiques : : . 618 
Bishops required to affirm that they did not condemn 
second marriages : ‘ ‘ : . 618 
S. Amphilochius . ; . 618 
Remarriage of a widow blameworthy, especially if there 
are children : 3 ‘ : . 618 
Socrates : . 618 
Digamists, at Constantinople, not openly received nor 
openly expelled 618 


In the face of such rigorism it is impossible ‘that polygamy 
should have found a place in the early Church 


(ii.) Direct Christian opinion as to concurrent polygamy : ΠῚ] 
Text of Authorities . ἱ : : . 619 | 
Examination of Authorities ; . 625 
Subject never dealt with as of practical bearing . . 625 
Sometimes treated by way of comment on Old Testament 

Scriptures é : : : : . 625 
Origen . : . 625 
The sucramentum of the marriages of the patriar chs . 625 
S. Clement of Alexandria . , : : . 626 
Polygamy no longer conceded : : : . 626 
Tertullian ‘ : : . 626 
Practices once permitted 1 now abolished ; : . 626 


archs as of figurative intention 


In Montanist days, explained the polygamy of ie a 
: : . 626 


S. Jerome : : 
Lamech, the first bigamist, accursed : : . 627 
S. Ambrose : . 627 
“ Adultery was apparently not yet forbidden” yal 
S. Augustine . ‘ . 627 


Allowed to patriarchs for the sake of more abundant offspring 627 
The early Church thus regarded the polygamy of the patri 


archs as a concession which had passed away . . 628 

(111.) The Lambeth Conference of 1888 F 628 
No person maintaining conjugal relations with more than 

one wife or husband is to be admitted to baptism. 628 

Wives of polygamists in some cases to be admitted to baptism 628 

Difficulties of this case ; ‘ : . 628 


Conclustons + : ΤῊΝ 7 . SS 


xliv HOLY MATRIMONY 


CHAPTER. X. 
ΟΡ MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 
Introductory Statement ; . 634 
Christians are bound to revert from Divers and Polygamy to the 
Divine Institution i . 634 
The unholiness of the marriages of near kin may not be 80 ‘much a 
part of the Divine Institution as a result of the Fall : . 635 


But such marriages, unlike divorce and polygamy, are forbidden to 
the very heathen, and accordingly to Christians : . 635 
Universal application of the prohibition ‘ : . 635 
The higher stringency of the Christian law, passing by any suffered 
deflections, will revert to the fulness of the Divine requirement, 
re-imposing a fortiort all prohibitions of universal application . 637 


1. Holy Scripture . ‘ ς - : ‘ . 638 
(i.) The Mosaic Code . : i ‘ : . 638 
Lev. xvii. 6-18 3 ; : . 638 
Lev, xx. 11, 12, 14, 17, 19. 21 , : : . 639 
Deut. xxvii. 20, 22,23 . ‘ : . 639 
[Table I. Marriages forbidden to the Man] . 640 
(a) A reasonable arrangement vs discernible in the provisions of 
the Code i Ἵ ᾿ : ‘ . 641 
(a) A preamble : : : . . 641 
(8) A general enactment ; : . 641 
(vy) Representative cases, not exhaustive, but yet in 
certain instances redundant ; . 641 
(1) The half-sister by the father (case of 
Abraham and Sarah) . , . 642 
(2) Wife’s sister during lifetime (case of 
Jacob and Rachel} j . 642 


(b) The provisions of the Code.involve certain great principles . 642 
(2) Persons nearly related by blood may not marry . 642 
(8) Persons nearly related by affinity may not marry . 642 
(y) Relationship through the woman is analogous to 


relationship through the man : : . 643 

[Table II. Marriages forbidden to the Woman] : : . 643 
(5) The principle governing affinity, viz., that a man 

_ and his wife are one flesh . 644 


(Compare the principle of “ household modesty,” 
and the principle of “ sapinda relationship”) 644 
[Table 111. Table of Prohibitions completed | . 646 
(The Table of the Book of Common Prayer. This is 
complete statement of the prohibitions of the is 


Divine) : ‘ ‘ . 647 

(ε) The principle of the “ magnet Z : . 647 
Attraction greater to obiects near, and less to 

objects distant : ‘ . 647 

(ὃ The principle of limitation . . 648 


1, Consanguinity does not bar unless one of the 
ale is descended from the father or 
[rom the mother of the other 4 . 648 


CONTENTS xly 


Holy Scripture (continued)— PAG 
2. Affinity does not bar the relations of the husband 

from marriage with the relations of the wife . . 648 

(c) The case of the deceased wife's sister . 2 . 648 

It is included under the principles laid down : . 648 
The wording of the provision in the Mosaic Code will 

not alter this : . 649 


If permitted by the Code, as was the Levirate custom, 
it will be a case of marriage not devoid of sinful 


character, but permitted in a fallen state : . 649 
The verse Ley. xviii. 18 now to be considered, . 650 
a. Some refer it to polygamy . 650 
This admissible so far as the Hebrew is con- 
cerned, but . . 650 
L Such a prohibition is out of place i in a 
list of prohibited degrees ; . 650 


2. It should have been prominent; and 
should have exacted more attention. 651 
3. Polygamy is admitted and legislated for 


elsewhere in the Code, : . 651 
4, Polygamy was practised. - 651 
5. Except the Karaites, the Jews did not 
interpret the verse in this sense , . 651 
β. Others refer it to the wife’s sister. . 651 
The case of the living wite mentioned heen 
of Jacob and Rachel . : . 651 


1. The verse may be intended to prohibit such 
marriages, even when the wife is dead. 652 
The structure of the Hebrew verse . 652 
2. Or it may mean that marriage with a wife’s 
‘sister is permitted when the wife is dead . 652 
This the traditional Jewish rendering . 653 
Yet the weakness of argument a negativo 653 
3. The verse may be directed only to the case 
exemplified by Jacob’s pan Oe and have 
no other application ; . 653 
No final determination here attempted. The writer 
believes the verse to refer to the wife’s sister, and 
simply to contemplate the case of Jacob’s marriage . 654 
But for Christian practice the verse is of no final 


significance ; : ‘ . 654 

(d) The case of the Levirate law : . 654 

Has been already considered (Chap. Ate ). : . 655 

(ii.) The New Testament . : . 655 

(a) S. Matt. xiv. 3, 4 : : x : . 655 

(oy ΔΙ il l7,-18°  _. Σ : : . 655 

(c) S. Luke iu. 19 : . 655 
S. John the Baptist’s condemnation of Herod’s union 

with Herodias  . : . 655 

Not as being a remarriage after divorce : . 655 

But as a union with his brother’s wife . 655 


‘And this though he was ee the Rie -brother of 
her former husband . 655 


xlv1 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Holy Scripture (continued )— PAGE 
(d) 1 Cor. v. 1-5 : . 656 
Union with a stepmother an abomiiation even ἢ to a 
Roman : ; . 656 
Doubly inadmissible to a Christian 3 ; . 656 
(2) Marriages of near kin outside the Chosen People. : . 656 
Text of Authorities as to the Roman, Hindu, and Musulman 
systems of law : ; : : . 656 
Examination of Authorities : . 667 
The laws of the nations outside Ciinaaaite indicat 
the existence of the pudor naturalis : . 667 
They may be exemplified by (a) the Roman, 0 the 
Hindu, and (ὁ) the Musulman systems . . 668 
(a) The Roman Law ; . 668 
Comparison of the Institutes τ Gite and 
_ the Institutes of Justinian . : . 668 
a. Consanguinity . : : . 669 
β. Affinity : : . 670 


Affinity of two marriages : . 670 
Ground of prohibition, the respectus 


parentelae . : : ΟΝ 

ean y. Adoption : ; : . 671 
(b) The Hindu Law , : Mage ais 
a. Consanguinity 5 ; : . 673 

B. Affinity . : . 674 

The theory of sapinda relationship . 674 

Artificial barriers not considered . . 675 

(c) The Musulman Law ‘ : ; ἃ 675 
a. Consanguinity : : : Ole 

8. Affinity . : : : . 676 

y. Fosterage ᾿ . 676 


Prohibitions of affinity in all three ee but τς 
grounds assigned are different from the grounds of 


the Mosaic Code. : : : . 676 

2. The Church in History. . : : : : . 677 
| (i.) To the Conversion of Constantine : 3 ὶ “077 
Text of Authoritres ; ; ‘ : . 677 

Examination of Authorities : t . . 680 

Introductory Statement . 680 


The legal systems under which the early Christians 
lived were (a) the Roman, and (Ὁ) the Jewish . 680 

The Roman law. No question arises till the 

Roman law and the Mosaic Code part company. 


Deceased wife’s sister a case in point : . 681 
Influence of the slander as to the prevalence of 

incest ius Bs Christians : . . 681 

Tertullian . , . 682 


Herod’s sin his marriage with ie ΓΤ S wife . 682 


CONTENTS xlvi 


The Church in Historg (continued)— PAGE 
The Apostolical Canons : . 683 
No one may become a Senay who has “married two 
sisters. : . 683 
This an indication of indulgence to the laity : . 683 
Probable that some laxity would at first be suffered . 684 
Council of Eliberis . : . 685 


A man who married his deccased wife’s Me ister was to 
be excluded from communion for five years, but 


then reconciled . . 685 

For marriage with a stepdaughter the τ ΤῈ was P 

to be excommunicated till the last, “because it 15 i 

incest” . : ὃ . 685\ 

First Synod of Ancyra (a. D. 314) Α alain 

Case of connexion with two sisters : : . 685 

First Council of Neo-Caesarea (A.D. 515). . 686 
A woman who marries two brothers to be excluded 

from communion till death . : i . 686 

(ii.) From Constantine to Justinian : : ; . 686 

Text of Authorities A : : : . 686 

Examination of Authorities ” : : . 692 

S. Basil : : : . 692 

The Canonical Epistles. . 692 
A man who has married his brothers Ww ae not to be 

received till he has left her . ~ : . 692 

Other penalties ; : : d . 693 

Epistle to Diodorus of Tarsus. . 693 
Argument against marriage with a deceased wife’s 

Sister ; la ee . 693 

S. Timothy of Alexandria : . 695 
Marriage with an aunt or with a deceased wife’s “ΠῚ 

unlawful . τ : Ἶ : . 695 

S. Ambrose : : : : ‘ . 695 

Epistle to Paternus. Marriage with a niece unlawful . 695 

S. Augustine. : ς : : . 696 

De Cini Der : : . 696 

On the marriage of ag) cousins : : . 696 

Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 696 
The prohibition of a brother’s ‘wife refers to the wife 

of a brother deceased : . 696 


The prohibition of a “wife to her sister” not a pro- 
hibition of polygamy, but is the case of Jacob’s 


Wives . : . 696 

Theodoret : : . 697 
The prohibition of a “ wife to her sister” in Leviticus 

referred to the case of Jacob’s wives ς : υ 697 

The Roman Synod : . 697 
Marriage with a wife’s sister or with an “uncle's wife 

unlawful . : : : : . 697 

Gu.) From Justinian. Oar 


This period of little significance as ; to the Divine laws of 
marriage : : : ; ; . 697 


xl vill HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Church in History (continued) — 
Enormous increase of prohibitions . 


The Roman law had forbidden the marriage of persons 
related in the fourth degree : : 


The Eastern Church : 
The Eastern Church extended ἘΠ ἢ the sixth 


degree, and afterwards to the seventh degree . 698 
The principle of the magnet . 699 
Affinity of two marriages . 699 
The doctrine. of spiritual relationship sprang from the 

laws regulating relationship by adoption . . 700 
Extension from god parents and godchildren to collaterals. 

Prohibition to the seventh degree yey 
No contention by any that these prohibitions : are of Divine 

imposition : . 702 

The Western Church 4 * 702 
In the West also prohibitions were τύ and not 
only to the seventh degree by the Eastern reckoning, 

but to the seventh generation: Practically all remem- 

bered relationship ; . 702 

Spiritual relationship extended : : . 703 
Affinity only a bar when prima generis . 703 
The Levitical prohibitions uniformly imposed till the 
introduction of Papal dispensations . 703 
The principle of dispensation . . 704 
Pope Martin V. (a.p. 1427) granted a dispensation for 

marriage with a wite’s sister . 704 
A similar application being made to Eugenius Ve; 

Cardinal Turrecremata’s sentence was that the Pope 

could not dispense, . 705 
Alexander VI. (Borgia) granted a dispensation for 

marriage with a wife’s sister, and with an aunt by 

blood Uo 
Case of Henry VIII. and Katherine of Aragon ate 
- pensation by Julius II. . 705 
This the first case of dispensation for marriage with 
a brother’s wife . 705 
Growth of the practice of dispensation : . 705 
Cardinal Cajetan’s expression of dilemma. He concludes 

that the only marriages excluded by the law of nature 

are those with a father or with a mother . 706 

The English Church ᾧ ΠΩ 
The English Church has been pale to the ΓΤ 

traditions of Christian marriage 70% 

Case of Henry VIII. and Katherine of Arragon Ou 
There is no instance before or since the Reformation in 
which the English Church has finally sanctioned any 

breach of the erica! prohibitions : , 708 

. 708 


History of the Anglican table 
INDEX ; 4 - 


PAGE 


. 697 


. 698 
. 698 


2 409 


(Olebae di eke AI 
OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 


WO chief opinions are current with regard to the origin Two 

and consequent character of human marriage. All the ts 
historical churches of Christendom, and also most of the een 
members of other Christian societies, hold that marriage is of 
Divine institution. On the other hand a considerable number 
of secular writers, including many lawyers of note, regard 
marriage purely as a civil contract or status, with which 
Divine institution has no more to do than is necessarily 
involved in the formation of human nature as we find: it, and 
the terms of which human society is accordingly at liberty to 
modify as occasion may reasonably demand. Clearly it is only 
on the former theory that the consideration of marriage can Thee 
come within the scope of Theology. In support of the view Eons 
that marriage is of Divine institution theologians appeal to the 4 aes 
three great sources of all Theology, viz., (1) Holy Scripture, δ με * 


aay be Divine. 
(2) Christian History, and (9) Reason. 


1. Hoty SCRIPTURE. 


The following are the principal authorities from Holy ς Hoty 
Scripture for the belief that marriage is of Divine institution, “"P™"* 


(.) S. Matthew xix. 4-6: 


4 Ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς, εἶπεν αὑτοῖς: Οὐκ 4 And he answered and said unto 
ἀνέγνωτε, ὅτι ὁ ποιήσας am’ ἀρχῆς, ἄρσεν . them, Have ye not read, that he which 
kal θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτοὺς ; made ἐλ, at the beginning made them 


male and female. 
B 


2 HOLY MATRIMONY 


5 Kal eimev' “Evexev τούτου κατα- 
λείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν 
μητέρα, καὶ προσκολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ 
αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν" 

6 Ὥστε οὐκέτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ σὰρξ 
μία. Ὃ οὗν ὁ Θεὸς συνέζευξεν, ἄνθρωπος 
μὴ χωριζέτω. 


(11.) S. Mark x. 6-9: 


6 ᾿Απὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως, ἄρσεν καὶ 
θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεὸς. 

7 “Evexev τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος 
τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καὶ προσ- 
κολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ. 

ὃ Καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δυο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 
Ὥστε οὐκέτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ μία σάρξ. 


9 Ὃ οὖν ὁ Θεὸς συνέζευξεν, ἄνθρωπος 
μὴ χωριζέτω. 


5 And said, For this cause shall a 
man leave father and mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife: and they twain shall 
be one flesh ? 

6 Wherefore they are no more twain, 
but one flesh. What therefore God hath 
joined together, let notman putasunder. 


6 But from the beginning of the crea- 
tion God made them male and female. 

7 For this cause shall a man leave 
his father and mother, and cleave to 
his wife ; : 

8 And they twain shall be one flesh : 
so then they are no more twain, but 
one flesh. 

9 What therefore God hath joined 
together, let not man put asunder. 


It will be remarked that these two passages are not merely 


taken from Holy Scripture, but that they give the words of our 
Lord Himself. Our Lord expressly declares that it was Gop, 
Who “from the beginning of the creation” “made them male 
and female”; that it was He Who said, “They twain shall be 
one flesh”; that therefore “they are no more twain but one 
flesh”; that “Gop hath jomed” them “together”; and that 
therefore man may not put them asunder. 


(i11.) Genesis 11. 21-25: 


21 And the Lorp God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept : 
and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof ; 

22 And the rib, which the Lorp God had taken from man, made he a 
woman, and brought her unto the man. 

23 And Adam said, This 7s now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: 
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave 
unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 


In this passage we have the Old Testament narrative of the 
formation of woman by Gop, and of Adam’s immediate recog- 
nition of the purpose of this Divine action as being the intimate 
union indicated by the words “bone of my bone and flesh of 
my flesh.” The corollary “Therefore shall a man leave his 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 3 


father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they 
shall be one flesh” is not to be taken as a continuation of the 
words of Adam, but as the utterance of Gop, for so our Lord 
explains it in the passages already noticed ; the therefore apply- 
ing to the Divine act in forming woman, and not merely to the 


words of Adam. 


(iv.) Malachi uu. 14-16: 


14 4“ Yet ye say, Wherefore ? Because the Lorp hath been witness between 
thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously : 
yet zs she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 


15 And did not he make one ? 
wherefore one ? 


Yet had he the residue of the spirit. 
That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your 


And 


spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 

16 For the Lorn, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for 
one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lorp of hosts: therefore take 
heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. 


Here it is Gop, Who “did make one.” 


At least one definite 


Divine purpose moved Him thus to “make one,” that “ He 


might seek a godly seed.” 


And Gob, Who thus made one, 


“saith that He hateth putting away.” 


(v.) EHphesians v. 22-33: 


22 Ai γυναῖκες, τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν 
ὑποτάσσεσθε, ὡς τῷ Κυρίῳ" 

23 ὅτι ὁ ἀνήρ ἐστι κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναι- 
Kos, ὡς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλη- 
σίας, καὶ αὐτός ἐστι σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος. 


24 ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ ἡ ἐκκλησία ὑποτάσ- 
σεται τῷ Χριστῷ, οὕτω καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες 
τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ἐν παντί. 

25 Οἱ ἄνδρες, ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας 
ἑαυτῶν, καθὼς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ἠγάπησε 
τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ ἑαυτὸν παρέδωκεν 
ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς" 

20 ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ, καθαρίσας τῷ 
λουτρῷ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν ῥήματι" 


27 ἵνα παραστήσῃ αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ ἔνδοξον 
τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, μὴ ἔχουσαν σπῖλον ἢ 
ῥυτίδα ἤ τι τῶν τοιούτων, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ἢ 
ἁγία καὶ ἄμωμος. 


22 Wives, submit yourselves unto 
your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 

23 For the husband is the head of 
the wife, even as Christ is the head of 
the Church: and he is the Saviour of 
the body. 

24 Therefore as the Church is subject 
unto Christ, so ἐσέ the wives be to their 
own husbands in every thing. 

25 Husbands, love your wives, even 
as Christ also. leved the Church, and 
gave himself for it ; 


26 That he might sanctify and 
cleanse it with the washing of water 
by the Word, 

27 That he might present it to him- 
self a glorious Church, not having spot, 
or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that 
it should be holy and without blemish, 


B 2 


2. The 
Church in 
History. 


4 HOLY MATRIMONY 


28 οὕτως ὀφείλουσιν οἱ ἄνδρες ἁγαπᾷν 
τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας, ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν σώ- 
para’ ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα, 
ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπᾶ. 

29 οὐδεὶς γάρ ποτε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σάρκα 
ἐμίσησεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἑκτρέφει καὶ θάλπει αὐτὴν, 
καθὼς καὶ ὁ Κύριος τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. 

80 ὅτι μέλη ἐσμὲν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, 
ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων 
αὐτοῦ. : 

31 ἀντὶ τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος 
τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καὶ 
προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυυαῖκα 
αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 

32 τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν" 
ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν, καὶ εἰς τὴν 
ἐκκλησίαν. 

33 πλὴν καὶ ὑμεῖς οἱ καθ᾽ ἕνα, ἕκαστος 
τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα οὕτως ἀγαπάτω ὡς 
ἑαυτόν" ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἵνα φοβῆται τὸν ἄνδρα. 


28 So ought men to love their wives 
as their own bodies. He that loveth 
his wife loveth himself, 


29 For no man ever yet hated his 
own flesh ; but nourisheth and cher- 
isheth it, even as the Lord the Church: 

30 For we are members of his body, 
of his flesh, and of his bones. 


31 For this cause shall a man leave 
his father and mother, and shall be 
joined unto his wife, and they two 
shall be one flesh. 

32 This is a great mystery: but I 
speak concerning Christ and the 
Church. 

33 Nevertheless let every one of 
you in particular so love his wife even 
as himself ; and the wife see that she 


reverence her husband. 


S. Paul here, instructing married persons as to their mutual 
obligations, bases his instructions on a mystical ground which 
necessarily involves the Divine consecration of marriage, the 
ground being, to use the words of the Anglican prayer, that 
Gop “has consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an 
excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented 
the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and His 
Church.” 

In Holy Scripture, therefore, and notably in the words of 
our Lord, the ordinance of marriage is referred to a Divine 
source. 


2. THE CHURCH IN HISTORY. 


Passing from Holy Scripture to the testimony of the Church 
in history we find that the Divine institution of marriage has 
been maintained at all times and in all branches of the Church 
with practical unanimity. A very few references will therefore 
suffice. 

S. Chrysostom in the De libello repudii says: “Read not to’ 
me the laws which have been enacted by those without, the 
laws commanding to give a bill of divorce, and to put away. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE a 


For in that day Gop will not judge thee by those laws, but by 
the laws which He has Himself imposed.” 1 

5. Augustine in the opening chapter of the De Bono Con- 
jugali writes: “Thus the husband and the wife constitute the 
first bond of human society, and even these Gop did not make 
in separation, and then join together as persons of alien stock, 
but he made the one out of the other; signifying also the 
strength of the union in the side from which the woman being 
drawn was formed.? 

5. Jerome commenting on Malachi 11., 13 sqq. says: “Since 
therefore one made each of the two, both the man and the 
woman: on this account the union of both was effected by 
Gop, that children should be born.’? 

Ὁ. Thomas Aquinas writes: “But the law of the unity of 
the wife (with the husband) was not instituted by man but by 
GOD, nor was it ever delivered by word or epistle, but impressed 
upon the heart, like other things which in any way pertain to 
the law of nature. And so in this matter dispensation could 
be made by Gop alone.” 

Pope Leo XIIL. in the Encycheal Arcanum Dwine Sapient 
issued on the 10th February, 1880, declares: “Since matrimony 
has Gop for its author, and was from the beginning a certain 
foreshadowing of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of 
Gop, it has ever been invested from the very beginning with a 





1S. Chrysostom, De libello repudii (Homily on 1 Corinthians vii., 39, 40), 
“Mn γάρ μοι τοὺς παρὰ Tots ἔξωθεν κειμένους νόμους ἀναγνῷς, τοὺς κελεύοντας διδόναι 
βιβλίον ἀποστασίου, καὶ ἀφίστασθαι. Οὐ γὰρ δὴ κατὰ τούτους σοι μέλλει κρίνειν τοὺς 
νόμους ὁ Θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ, ἀλλὰ καθ᾽ δὺς αὐτὸς ἔθηκε. 

2 §. Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, i. 1. 

‘Prima itaque naturalis humane societatis copula vir et uxor est. Quos 
nec ipsos singulos condidit Deus, et tanquam alienigenas junxit ; sed alteram 
creavit ex altero ; signans etiam vim conjunctionis in latere, unde illa detracta, 
formata est.” 

3 §. Jerome in Mal. ii. 18, sqq. 

‘Cum ergo unus utrumque fecerit, et virum et mulicrem: propterea a Deo 
facta est utriusque conjunctio, ut liberi nascerentur.” 

4S. Thomas. Supp. Quaest. 65, Art. ii. 

‘*Lex autem de unitate uxoris non est humanitus sed divinitus instituta, nec 
unquam verbo aut litteris tradita, sed cordi impressa, sicut et alia quee ad legem 
nature qualitercunque pertinent. Et ideo in hoc a solo Deo dispensatio fieri 
potuit.” 


6 HOLY MATRIMONY 


sacred and religious character, which cannot be regarded as 
accidental, but rather as something belonging to it, and not as 
received from man, but as imprinted by nature.”? 

The Anglican Church is not less clear in the matter than. 
the rest of Christendom. 

(i.) In the opening address of the Marriage Service of the 
Church of England it is stated that— 


‘‘Matrimony . .. is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time 
of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt 
Christ and his Church.” 


Here it is laid down (a) that Gop instituted Matrimony, (ὁ) 
that He did so in the time of man’s innocency, and (6) that 
the Matrimony thus instituted by Gop has a certain mystical 
significance. 

(ii.) The charge to the persons about to be married that 
they should disclose any impediments is as follows: 

“1 require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of 
judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you 
know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matri- 
mony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are 
coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together 
by God ; neither is their Matrimony lawful.” 

In this charge it is (a) imphed that the Matrimony which 
Gop has instituted only allows the coupling together of persons 
subject to certain laws and conditions, while (0) it is asserted 
“that so many as are coupled together otherwise than Gop’s 
Word doth allow are not joined together by Gop,” and (c) that 
the Matrimony of such persons (notwithstanding any civil 
authorization) is not, in a Christian sense, lawful. 

Gu.) In the questions preceding the betrothal the persons 
are asked whether they are prepared “to live together after 
God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony,” and the 
leading requirements of that ordinance are mentioned. 


“21. Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after 
God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort 
her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health ; and, forsaking all other, 
keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live 2 

“NM. Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after 
God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and 





1 Encye, Arcanum Divine Sapientie. Feb. 10, 1880. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE Ἷ 


serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking 
all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live ?” 


(iv.) In the actual betrothal each person undertakes “to have 
and to hold” the other under all circumstances “ till death us 
do part, according to God’s holy ordinance.” 


“I M. take thee WV. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day 
forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to 
love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance ; 
and thereto I plight thee my troth. 

“TI N. take thee JZ to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this 
day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, 
to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy 
ordinance ; and thereto I give thee my troth.” 


(v.) In the prayer after the giving of the ring the Minister 
prays that the persons “may ever remain in perfect love and 
peace together, and hve according to Thy laws.” 

(vi.) On joining the right hands together the Priest says: 


᾽ 


“Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.’ 

Here it is clearly taught (a) that Christian persons rightly 
married are “joined together by Gop,” and (0) that when Gop 
has so joined husband and wife together, it is beyond the com- 
petence of man to put them asunder. 

(vil.) The prayer preceding the final blessing is throughout 
an appeal to the Divine institution of Matrimony, and to the 
Divine teaching in connexion with it. 


“O GOD, who by thy mighty power hast made all things of nothing ; who 
also (after other things set in order) didst appoint, that out of man (created 
after thine own image and similitude) woman should take her beginning ; and, 
knitting them together, didst teach that it should never be lawful to put 
asunder those whom thou by Matrimony hadst made one: O God, who hast 
consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is 
signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his 
Church ; Look mercifully upon these thy servants, that both this man may 
love his wife, according to thy Word (as Christ did love his spouse the Church, 
who gave himself for it, loving and cherishing it even as his own flesh), and 
also that this woman may be loving and amiable, faithful and obedient to her 
husband ; and in all quietness, sobriety, and peace, be a follower of holy and 
godly matrons. O Lord, bless them both, and grant them to inherit thy ever- 
lasting kingdom ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” 


In this prayer it is affirmed (a) that Gop knit man and 


woman together, making them one by Matrimony, (ὦ) that He 
did teach that it should never be lawful to put such persons 


3. Reason. 


8 HOLY MATRIMONY 


asunder, (c) that He has consecrated the state of matrimony to 
an excellent mystery, and (d@) that His word teaches that a man 
should love his wife, as Christ did love His Spouse the Church. 

(vii.) The final blessing appeals to the Divine action in the 
marriage of Adam and Eve, when Gop “did sanctify and join 
them together in marriage.” 


“ALMIGHTY God, who at the beginning did create our first parents, Adam 
and Eve, and did sanctify and join them together in marriage ; Pour upon you 
the riches of his grace, sanctify and bless you, that ye may please him both in 
body and soul, and live together in holy love unto your lives’ end. Amen.” 


3. REASON. 


Apart from the utterances of authority, reason seems to 
require that marriage should be derived from a higher source 
than the enactments of the particular legislatures of the various 
civil communities. The family is the unit of human society, 
and marriage 1s the foundation of the family. On the family, 
and therefore on marriage, all existing human societies are 
based, and to derive the fundamental laws of marriage from 
the enactments of existing societies is to become involved in 
a vicious circle. Attempts have been made of late years to 
establish as a fact of history a certain uniformity of progression 
from low sexual relations to the exalted family type, but all 
such attempts have confessedly broken down. It is upon the 
family that the State is based not less in history than in reason. 
It is not therefore to the State that we should look for the 
moral foundations of the family. The State may indeed find 
itself under a virtual obligation to translate the moral founda- 
tions of the family into current legislative forms, that so what 
is binding by the law of Gop may be legally required by the 
community. On the other hand the existence of non-Christian 
elements in the population of a Christian State may render it 
unavoidable, and in conceivable circumstances even desirable, 
that civil sanction shall be accorded +o unions not permitted 
by the lofty Christian law of marriage. If, however, it be ever 
attempted to reason that such civil enactments have any moral 


1 See Chapter IV. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 9 


authority or can justify any person in the forum of conscience, 
a mere survey of the provisions regulating divorce in some of 
the existing marriage codes seems sufficient to reduce the 
argument to an absurdity. It will show that in the matter 
of marriage regulations it is impossible to derive a moral 
standard from the conflict of the various systems of particular 
communities. | 

It will be sufficient to refer to those secular provisions affecting 
divorce, which are in force in countries where the Anglican 
Church is at work. These countries will be chiefly?: 


(.) The British Isles. 

Qi.) The British Colonies. 
Gi.) The United States of America. 
(iv.) The Indian Empire. 


(1) THE BritisH ISLEs. 
(a) England. 


By the Divorce Act of 1857, modified by subsequent Ainend- 
ment Acts, it 15 provided that either husband or wife may 
obtain a divorce on the ground of the adultery of the other, 
but when the husband is the offender, the adultery must be 
accompanied by enormity, cruelty, or desertion. Unnatural 
crime even without adultery is ground for divorce. When a 
decree of divorce has been made absolute, the parties are both 
at liberty to marry again. The offending party may even 
marry the paramour. A petitioner is not allowed to obtain 
judgment of divorce, if it appear that he or she has been guilty 
of conniving at the commission of the offence, or that there is 
collusion between the parties in order to procure the divorce.” 





' Dr. Serrell of Lincoln’s Inn has been good enough to revise and in great 
measure supply the information which follows as to the Divorce law of England, 
Ireland, British North America, Australasia, Massachusetts, and New York ; 
and for the correctness of this information he permits me to use his name. For 
the remaining statements I can only refer to the authorities cited at the foot 
of the page.—O. 1). W. 

* Connivance and collusion are different. Connirance is where one of the 
spouses is practically a party to the other committing the adultery. Collusion 
is where—there being already a good ground for divoree—the petitioner is in 
fact in league with the respondent with a view to getting a divorce.—G. 8S, 


10 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Divorce is also barred where the injured party has after the 
discovery of the offence condoned it by the re-admission of 
conjugal relations. Further, even in the absence of connivance, 
collusion, and condonation, which are absolute bars, the Court 
can and generally does refuse to grant a divorce where the 
petitioner has been guilty of adultery, cruelty, or desertion, 
or of wilful neglect or misconduct conducing to the adultery of 
the other, or of unreasonable delay in seeking redress.' 


(0) Scotland. 

In Scotland since the Reformation divorce has been admitted 
in cases of adultery. <A statute of 1575 provides further that 
malicious desertion is a sufficient ground of divorce. After 
the pronouncement of a decree of divorce, it is not permitted to 
the offending party to contract a marriage with the paramour, 
at least if the paramour be named in the decree. Otherwise 
both parties are at liberty to marry whom they will? 


(c) Lreland. 

The marriage laws of Ireland regard marriage as indissoluble, 
and divorce is not by them admitted. In practice, however, 
divorces are frequently obtained by means of particular Acts 
of the legislature. 

Gi.) THE British COLONIES. 
(a) British North Amervea. 
(α.) Toe Dominion or CANADA. 

In New Brunswick and Prince Edward’s Island there have, 
from an earlier date than the English Act of 1857, been laws 
allowing of divorce for adultery only. In Nova Scotia, adultery 
and cruelty are grounds of divorce. 

With these exceptions there is no law of divorce in the 
Dominion of Canada. Indeed, the Civil Code of Lower Canada, 
now the Province of Quebec, expressly declares marriage 
indissoluble. No law of divorce can now be passed by any of 


1 The Divorce Act, 1857. See also Stephen’s Commentaries, 11th edition, 
1890, vol. ii. pp. 295 sqgq., and Browne and Powles, On Divorce, 1889, pp. 1-58. 

2 E. Robertson, Article “ Divorce” in Hncyclopedia Britannica. 

3 Browne and Powles, On Divorce, 1889, p. 52. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE Lt 


the provincial legislatures! and the Dominion Parhament 
has not exercised its power of legislating on the subject.” 
Divorces, however, are obtained by means of Acts of the 
Dominion Parliament: thus the Private Acts of 1893 include 
seven Divorce Acts. 

(β.) NEWFOUNDLAND.? 


There is here no law authorizing divorce. 


(b.) Australasia. 


The Australian legislation of 1890 introduces, as will be 
seen, a new departure in the laws of marriage and divorce in 
the British Empire, so far as regards Christian subjects of the 
Crown. Before 1890, Divorce Acts had been passed in all the 
five colonies of Australia, which in the main followed the 
English Act of 1857. The dates of these acts are as follows: 
Victoria, 1864, repealing the earler act of 1861;* Western 
Australia, 1863 ;5 Queensland, 1865; South Australia, 1867,° 
repealing the earlier act of 1858;’ and New South Wales, 
1873.8 

The new Victorian Act of 1890 allows of divorce in five 
cases not covered by the prior law or by the English Act, viz., 

(1) Desertion for three years. 

(2) Three years’ habitual drunkenness with (in the case of 
the husband) neglect to support the wife, or cruelty to her, or 
(in the case of the wife) neglect of domestic duties. 

(3) Where respondent has been imprisoned for not less 





1 See British North America Act, 1867, 30 Vict. ὁ. 3, s. 91. 

2 See the Acts of the Legislatures of the Provinces and of Canada, not 
repealed by the Revised Statutes, Ottawa, 1887 ; for Lower Canada, page 404 ; 
for Nova Scotia, pp. 478 and 500; for New Brunswick, pp. 540, 568, and 574; 
and for Prince Edward’s Island, pp. 636, 691, and 710. 

ὅ See The Consolidated Statutes of Newfoundland, 1872, and the subsequent 
Statutes down to and including those for 1893. 

4 The Victorian Statutes, Melbourne, 1875, vol. i. p. 1656. 

> The Statutes of Western Australia, Melbourne, 1883, vol. i. p. 117. 

6 The Queensland Statutes, Brisbane, 1874, vol. iii. p. 1510. 

7 Acts of the Parliament of South Australia (annual) Adelaide, 1867, 
31 Vict. No. 3. 

5 Oliver’s Statutes of New South Wales, Sydney, 1879, vol. i. p. 806. 


LZ HOLY MATRIMONY 


than three years, and is still in prison, for some very grave 
crime, or (in the case of the husband) where he has been 
repeatedly in prison, and left the wife habitually without 
means of support. 

(4) Conviction of having within a year attempted to murder 
petitioner, or assaulted with intent to do grievous bodily harm ; 
or of having repeatedly during that period assaulted and cruelly 
beaten petitioner. 

(5) Applies only to husband respondent, and gives divorce 
where he has been guilty, since the Act, of adultery in the 
conjugal residence, or under ageravated circumstances, or of 
repeated acts of adultery. 

Similar Acts have been passed by the legislatures of New 
South Wales and South Australia, but appear not to have 
received the royal assent. 

The preamble of the new Victorian Act asserts the desira- 
bility of granting divorce for additional causes, which, no less 
than adultery, defeat the objects of marriage. The Act 
thus introduces into British territory for the first time as 
applied to the Christian subjects of the Crown the permission 
of divorce not based upon adultery. Hitherto, if a disputed 
interpretation of our Lord’s words has been accepted, the 
legislation of the British Empire has been designed, in the case 
of Christians, to be in accordance with some interpretation of 
His words. In the new Australian Acts His teaching is simply 
unheeded. 

In Tasmania! and New Zealand? Divorce Acts are in force 
which are in substantial accordance with the Divorce Law of 
England. The dates of the Acts are, Tasmania 1860 and New 
Zealand 1867. 


(11.) THe UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


In the United States of America there is no federal law of 


1 The Acts of the Parliament of Tasmania, Hobart Town, 1863, vol. ii. 
Ῥ. 213; and see in vol. v. Index to Statute Law in force in Tasmania, 1877, 
p. 10. 

2 Statutes of New Zealand, 31 Vict. Wellington, 1867, No. 94; Curnin’s 
Index to the Laws of New Zealand, 6th edition, Wellington, 1886, p. 63. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 15 


divorce. Each state imposes its own laws. We may refer to 
the laws of (a) Virginia, (Ὁ) New York, (c) Massachusetts, 
(@) Connecticut, (6) Louisiana, (/) Pennsylvania, and (g) Llinois. 


(a) Virginia. 
In Virginia the law makes no provision for divorce. Where 


a divorce is sought, a special Act of the Legislature has to be 
obtained." 


(0) New York.2 (Law as exrsting in 1883.) 


In New York divorce is accorded in the case of the adultery 
of either husband or wife. A decree may be refused by the 
Court on the grounds of (a) connivance, ((6) condonation, 
(y) the lapse of a period of five years prior to the institution 
of a suit, and (δ) the adultery of the plaintiff After a divorce 
has been decreed the innocent party may marry again during 
the lifetime of the other, but the offender is not at liberty to 
marry so long as the innocent party lives (except on special 
permission given by the divorce court on proof of certain 
facts). 


(c) Massachusetts.2 (Law as existing in 1882.) 
In Massachusetts divorce may be pronounced— 


(a) In case of adultery, cruelty, three years’ desertion, 
drunkenness, abusive treatment, and also, as against a husband, 
for refusing or neglecting to maintain his wife. 

(3) When one of the parties becomes attached to a religious 
sect or society which proscribes the relation of marriage, and 
remains so attached for a period of three years, refusing during 
that time to cohabit with the other party. 

(y) When one of the parties is condemned to hard labour 





1 Naquet, Le Divorce, Ὁ. 225. 

2 The Oode of Civil Procedure of the State of New York, δὲ 1756, 1758, 
and 1761, printed in the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, 7th edition, 

1883, vol. iv. pp. 350, 351. See also vol. 111. p. 2334. 
3 The Public Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, 1886, 
chapter 146, sections 1, 2, 3, 22, 42; pp. 813, 815, 817; and ch. 204, 5, 3; 
Ρ. 1165. 


14 HOLY MATRIMONY 


in the State prison, or in any jail or house of correction, 
whether for life or for a period of five years or more. 

(5) Where a decree for judicial separation has been made 
under the previous law, and the parties have since lived apart, 
then after the lapse of three years from the decree divorce 
may be accorded on the demand of the party in whose favour 
the decree was granted. Divorce may be accorded to either 
party after the lapse of five years from the decree of judicial 
separation. 

After a divorce the party in whose favour the divorce has 
been pronounced may marry again at once, the other party 
not until after the lapse of two years from the final decree. 


(d) Connecticut.* 

In Connecticut divorce is admitted on the following grounds: 

(a) Adultery. 

(6) Fraudulent contract. 

(y) Intentional desertion continued during three years, and 
accompanied by neglect. 

(6) Absence without intelligence for a period of seven years. 

(ce) Habitual intemperance. 

(¢) Intolerable cruelty. 

(7) Imprisonment for life. 

(9) Condemnation to imprisonment for neglect of conjugal 
duties, and | 

(.) Generally, acts of a character to render the petitioner 
unhappy. 

(6) Lousiana.” 

In Louisiana the causes of divorce are— 

(a) Adultery. 

(3) Drunkenness. 

(y) Excesses (?) 

(6) Cruelty. 

(ec) Outrages of such a nature as to render cohabitation 
insupportable. 





1 Naquet, Le Divorce, p. 230, quoting General Statutes, 1875. 
* Naquet, p. 280, quoting the Civil Code of Lowisiana, 1867, p. 20. 


Ou 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 1 


(¢) Condemnation to a punishment involving infamy. 

(η) Voluntary desertion during five years. 

When adultery is the cause of divorce the guilty party is 
not at liberty to marry again during the lifetime of the other. 


(7) Pennsylvania.+ 

In Pennsylvania divorces are granted— 

(a) For adultery. 

(8) When one of the parties, without valid cause, has 
deserted the other for two years. 

(y) When the husband by ill-treatment has endangered the 
life of his wife, or has rendered her condition intolerable by 
his indignities. 

(δ) When one of the parties has been sentenced to not less 
than two years’ imprisonment. 

(ε) When the wife, by her ill-conduct, has endangered the 
life of her husband, or has rendered his position intolerable. 

After a divorce has been decreed both parties are at liberty 
to marry again, but the guilty party in a case of adultery is 
not permitted to marry the paramour. 


(g) Lllinors.* 

In Llinois divorce can be obtained— 

(a) For impotence dating from before the marriage and 
continuing after it. 

(8) When one of the two parties is bound by a former 
marriage. 

(y) For adultery. 

(6) For the intentional desertion of either party by the 
other without valid cause. 

(ce) For habitual drunkenness continued for two years. 

(ὃ For an attempt by one of the parties on the life of the 
other by poison or otherwise. 

(η) For extreme and repeated cruelty. 

(0) For felony or crime involving infamy. 





1 Naquet, p. 231, quoting the Digest ef the Laws of Pennsylvania, 1862, 
9th edition, p. 345. 
2 Naquet, p. 231, quoting the Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1874. 


16 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The divorce laws of the other States of the American Union 
will be found analogous to one or other of these types. 


(iv.) THE INDIAN EMPIRE. 


The law of marriage and divorce in India is personal, not 
territorial. There is no one divorce law in force either in the 
whole Indian Empire, or in any part of it. On the other hand, 
the marriage law of every community, religious or social, which 
has in practice possessed a distinctive marriage law, is re- 
cognised and upheld by the British Courts. The laws of India 
in the matter of divorce will be referred to at some length in 
the chapter on marriage outside Christianity (ch. v.) They 
may be summarised here as follows :— 


(a) Hinduism. 


(a) Hindus generally.—With the great body of the Hindus 
divorce is not admitted. The woman is bound even after the 
death of her husband. To the husband, on the other hand, 
divorce is practically open in the supersession of the wife by 
marriage with a second wife. 

(3) Polyandrous tribes—In the case of the tribes of the 
Himalayas and of South India, which practise polyandry, the 
practice is recognised by the law. It necessarily carries with 
it great liberty of repudiation. 


(b) Islam. 


(a) Ordinary Dworce-—Among all Mussulmans, Sunni as 
well as Shia, entire liberty of divorce is accorded by the 
law to the husband. For a regular divorce the husband 
should recognise certain limitations, but for a valid divorce 
the mere threefold repetition of the words 7 divorce thee is 
sufficient. | 

(6) Temporary Marrvages—Among the Shias there obtains a 
system of temporary marriage, by which two persons contract 
to be husband and wife for a fixed term, divorce or separation 
ensuing at the end of the term by the conditions of the 
contract. 


OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE 17 


(0) Christianity. 

The Christian law of divorce is analogous to that of England. 

We have now before us a survey of the law of divorce in 
((.) England, Scotland, and Ireland, (i.) The British Colonies, 
Gu.) The United States of America, and (iv.) The Indian 
Empire. The survey presents an appalling variety of recog- 
nised practice. It is not possible to maintain that this variety 
of practice represents any unity of principle. In principle as 
in practice the various laws of divorce are manifoldly hostile to 
one another. It is not in such a maze that we can find moral 
authority and the satisfaction of conscience. We conclude 
again that marriage must be of Divine and not merely of 
human institution. 

The present work is a treatise on the Divine Laws of 
Marriage. Starting from the principle that marriage was 
instituted by Gop, it will be concerned with the laws which 
are involved in the Divine institution. It will have no 
concern with laws of merely human origin, whether civil or 
ecclesiastical. 


σ 


{ΤΙ ae 


OF THE THREE CHARAGIERS OF 7 
Ane ΟΥ̓ 


Pre ὩΣ ARRIAGE is of Divine institution, and as Divinely 

Characters. instituted, it had a character which man had no 
authority to change. But with the rebellion and the Fall of 
man, there came a change over his whole being, and over all 
his relations, and accordingly, not least, there came a change 
in the character of the estate of marriage. Once again, in the 
Redemption of man, there came a restoration of the whole 
being, and a new life in all rightful relations, and accordingly, 
not least, there came a new life in the estate of marriage. 
It is thus the fact that the union of the sexes in the human 
race has been so conditioned by circumstances that in the 
actual history of mankind it has presented three markedly 
different characters. The three stages in which marriage has 
thus been found are (1) Marriage in the state of Innocence 
and before the Fall, (2) Marriage after the Fall, and outside 
Christianity, and (3) Holy or Christian Matrimony. 


1. Marriage ὧν the State of Innocence and before the Full. 


ete This was marriage as originally instituted by Almighty Gop. 
in the “Marriage,” as says the introductory address of the English 
state of .. Marriage Service, “is an honourable estate instituted of Gop in 
the time of man’s innocency.” As so instituted it was the 
marriage of one man with one woman, and it was indissoluble. 
Polygamy was excluded, for in the original institution only one 
woman was called into being. Divorce was excluded, for our 


OF THE THREE CHARACTERS OF MARRIAGE | 19 


Lord, speaking of the later facility of divorce, tells us expressly 
that “from the beginning it was not so.” For the righteous 
maintenance of this Divinely instituted union the grace of 


Gop’s blessing continually abiding with the persons provided 
a sufficient support. 


2. Marriage after the Fall and outside Christianity. 


This was the estate of marriage, not as Gop had instituted z. Marriage 
it, but as perverted man maintained it. Marriage is no longer ail ΠΕ 
recognised as being necessarily with one partner only, or as ontsie 
being indissoluble by divorce. Gop had not altered His anity. 
institution, but having regard to the hardness of heart of 
those who were separated from Himself and were no longer 
sustained by the habitual assistance of the Divine grace, we 
find that even Gop did not directly interpose prohibitions 
of polygamy and divorce during the time of estrangement, 
although incestuous unions, speaking generally, were at all 
times the objects of direct prohibition. It would seem that 
the evils of polygamy and divorce were evils which were 
suffered lest haply worse should come so long as every man 
living was as yet unregenerate, and the best of men were but 
waiting for the redemption of the race. Evils which would be 


sufficient to estrange from a state of grace were proportionately 
insignificant in a state of sin. 


3. IToly or Christian Matrimony. 


In the reconciliation of man to Gop in Christ by the power 3. Holy or 
of the Holy Ghost the moral law is revived in its strictness. ea 
It is not open to one who is a member of the Body of Christ, 
and whose own body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, to 
contract any sexual union except the union of marriage as 
originally instituted by Gop. If he do contract such an 
irregular union, he commits sin and falls back into a con- 
dition of alienation from Gop. Accordingly in the Christian 
Church marriage becomes once more the exclusive union of 
two persons with one another, precluding polygamy ; and once 
more also it becomes an indissoluble union, subject indeed to 

CG 2 


20 HOLY MATRIMONY 


a provision not expressed in the narrative of the original 
institution, the provision “till death them do part.” 

To enable husband and wife to live up to the requirements 
of this high ordinance, notwithstanding the tendencies of 
the fallen nature which they have inherited, they have the 
strengthening and life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, Who 
dwells in their bodies as in His temples, and makes their union 
to be holy. This indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, added 
to the mystical or sacramental character of the original ordi- 
nance, in which a pervading union of the whole being was 
associated with the copula, gives to Holy or Christian 
Matrimony its Sacramental character in the Christian sense. 
Christian marriage is still the original ordinance, but it is the 
original ordinance transfigured by the indwelling presence of 
the Holy Spirit, as conferred in Baptism. 

In this chapter the three characters of marriage as found in 
the history of the race have been thus briefly sketched without 
attempt at proof or reference to authority, because the true 
understanding of the marriage-bond and of the difficulties 
which surround it is in a high degree dependent upon a clear 
erasp of this threefold distinction. The subject will be dealt 
with more in detail in the chapters which follow. 


Clnbade ihe Ι 18 GI 
OF MARRIAGE IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE 


OD instituted marriage “in the time of man’s innocency.” 

Our information with regard to marriage prior to man’s 
Fall is necessarily meagre because confined to the few notices 
in Holy Scripture, but there is enough to furnish some highly 
important particulars. 


1. The Objects of Marriage. 

The objects of marriage, as instituted before the Fall, are 
stated in Holy Scripture to be 

(a) That man should not be alone, but should have a help 
meet for him. 

Genesis 11. 18: 

And the Lorp God said, J¢ ἐδ not good that the man should be alone ; I will 
make him an help meet for him. 

(6) That Gop “might seek a godly seed.” 

Malachi ii. 15: 

And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And 
wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. 

Genesis 1. 27, 28: 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he 
him ; male and female created he them. 

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, 
and replenish the earth, and subdue it. 

[The third object of marriage, as commonly stated, may not 
have been regarded in the original institution. 

(ὁ) That sin might be avoided. 

1 Corinthians vii. 2: 


διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ 2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, 
γυναῖκα ἐχέτω, καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον let every man have his own wife, and 
ἄνδρα ἐχέτω. let every woman have her own husband. } 


Original 
Institution. 


1, Objects. 


z. The 
Copula. 


bo 


) HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Prayer Book statement of “the causes for which Matri- 
mony was ordained” is appended for comparison. 


‘* First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in 
the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of His holy Name. 

‘“Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication ; 
that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep 
themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body. 

‘‘Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the 
one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.” 


2. The Copula (copula carnalis). 


The most marked feature of the union was that it was an 
union in one flesh. 

Genesis τι. 23, 24: 

And Adam said, This 7s now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she 
shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall 


aman leave his fathez and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they 
shall be one flesh. 


Our Lord’s references to the Divine institution of marriage 
are here again cited. 


S. Matthew xix. 4-6: 


4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which 
made them at the beginning made them male and female, 

5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh ? 

6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God 
hath joined together, let not man put asunder, 


S. Mark x. 6-9: 


6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 

7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his 
wife ; 

8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one 
flesh. 

9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 


Gop, then, in the very institution of marriage, said, ‘They 
twain shall be one flesh.” Adam recognised the analogy 
between the oneness of flesh of the married state and the 
oneness resulting from the original formation of woman out 


“of man. Our Lord gives us to understand that the marriage 


union now is one flesh by reason of the oneness of flesh of 


OF MARRIAGE IN THE STATE OF INNOCENCE “ἢ 


Gop’s institution in Paradise—“Wherefore they are no more 
twain, but one flesh.” This specially intimate union of the 
flesh in the Divine institution 1s pre-eminent among the reasons 
which exclude divorce. “ What therefore Gop hath joined 
together, let not man put asunder.” 

The passages quoted above to shew that the procreation of 
children was one of the Divine objects in the institution of 
marriage in the state of innocence indicate the same intimate 
union in one flesh. There is no other means of multiplying 
the race known to man. 

Notwithstanding these very clear indications, there has been 
considerable difference of opinion in the Church as to whether 
the copula found place in Paradise. ὃ. Thomas Aquinas states 
without reserve that it did not.? 

The point is important for the very argument to which 
Ὁ. Thomas applies it. It goes to prove that the copula is or 
is not of the essence of marriage. 


2 


3. The Hxclusion of Polygamy. 


As Gop instituted marriage polygamy was excluded. Only 
Eve was called into being to be the wife of Adam, nor was a 
second wife found either necessary or expedient, whether for 
society, or for the procreation of children, or for the avoidance 
of sin. 

4. The Exclusion of Divorce. 


Divorce was not admitted. Our Lord expressly states, when 
referring to the facility of divorce accorded by the Mosaic 
code, that “from the beginning it was not so.” 





1S. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiv, Supp. Que. 42, Art. 4, ‘In paradiso 
fuit matrimonium, sed ibi non fuit carnalis copula. Ergo commixtio carnalis 
non est de integritate matrimonii.” 


3. The 
Exclusion 
of 
Polygamy. 


4. The 
Exclusion 
of Divorce. 


The Fall. 


GEA ΒΕ em i, 


OF THK FALL; AND OF WAELMCORRGII IC™ 
OLE A Lie eri 27, 


AC LanakAtis 


AN’S relations to Gop were thrown entirely out of gear 

by that pregnant act of disobedience from which came 
the Fall. No longer at one with Gop, his life was a life 
broken off, and because broken off, no better than a living 
death. No longer supported by the supernatural assistance 
of the Divine grace, he was no longer sufficiently strong for 
what lay before him. Broken off from Gop, and unsupported 
by Gop’s grace, his own composite nature, missing its guiding 
power, could no longer act harmoniously even within itself. 
The passions rose in tumultuous rebellion against the higher 
nature, which, in the absence of supernatural assistance, found 
itself all too weak to control.them. The passions therefore 
conquered, and brought about that “corruption of all flesh,” 
which was one of the two enormities for which Gop in His 
wisdom drowned the world, and for which at subsequent 
periods He visited many nations, as in the notable instances 
of the Canaanites and the cities of the plain. 

This treatise, as a treatise of Christian theology, will assume 
the truth of the narrative of the Fall, and of the blight of 
darkness and of death which as a consequence settled upon 
the human race. It will be necessary, however, to enter here 
upon the differences as to the theology of the Fall which have 
separated Christians among themselves. It need hardly be 
said that the theology of the Fall is of the most fundamental 
character, and that the theological views of any Christian will 


OF THE FALL 25 


be necessarily coloured, and indeed guided throughout, by the 
position which he takes up upon this subject. There are two 
main theories of the Fall, which we will call (1) the Catholic 
and (2) the Calvinistic. The Catholic doctrine, by which is The 
meant the doctrine common to the historic Churches of Monier 
Christendom, teaches indeed with entire definiteness that at 
that moment in time in which the first sin completely assumed 

its character of deadly rebelliousness man ceased to be in a 
state of grace and life, and commenced to be in a state of 
sin and death; and that, under Gop’s justice, notwithstanding 
the merciful guidance which enabled Gop-fearing men to lve 

as those who had only to wait for the redemption of the race, 
yet as regards the actual condition of all men during the long 
succession of years which elapsed before the fulness of the 
time was come, all men without exception were in a state 

of spiritual death. The atonement was not yet; Gop and 
man were not at one; there was a veil between them. 

So far the Catholic and the Calvinist doctrines are in accord, 
but the essential difference appears when we ask what was the 
character of that state of sin and death in which man lived 
after the Fall? It may be well illustrated in the following 
way: A man walking perilously close to the edge of a deep pit 
falls in, and, having fallen, lies terribly injured at the bottom, 
unable to extricate himself.!. The Catholic says that, terribly 
injured as the man is, there is a Great Physician who can heal 
him, and, taking him by the hand, can lead him forth out of 
that pit of misery and horror, and place him once more in the 
full light of the Divine presence and in the full life of the 
Divine indwelling. The Calvinist, however, says that the man The _ 
as he lies at the bottom of the pit is so mangled and shattered renee? 
that it is beyond possibility to restore him ;? that even Gop 
can only remedy the consequences, and not the fact. And 
that accordingly, when our Lord came, what He did was not 
to infuse life so that those bones should live, but to impute the 





1 See a valuable article in the Christian Remembrancer of Jan. 1863, 
‘Calvinism and Modern Doubt.” 

* Compare the Formula Consensus; ‘‘ Intima, pessima, profundissima (instar 
cujusdam abyssi) inscrutabilis et ineffabilis corruptio totius nature humane.” 


In the 
Calvinist 
system no 
place for 
sacra- 
mental 
grace. 


26 HOLY MATRIMONY 


merits of His own most holy life and death to the unholy 
sinner, who could never by any power of earth or heaven 
become holy in himself again. The salvation of man therefore, 
according to this theology, consists not in the restoration of 
holiness in the sinner, but in the artificial ascription of our 
Lord’s holiness to a person who continues and will continue 
pervadingly sinful, and in whom holiness cannot dwell.! 

It will be clear, upon reflexion, that the Calvinistic system 
has no place for sacramental grace in the Catholic sense. 
Neither Baptism nor the Holy Eucharist can supply a spiritual 
life and an indwelling holiness to a man whose ruin is beyond 
repair. All that can be looked for is that our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by an act of external mercy, may ascribe to him a 
holiness which was never his, and so-save him from the wrath 
to come. Similarly in the case of Holy Matrimony. The 
Catholic doctrine of Holy Matrimony, as we find it in the 
Christian Church, may be said to be that the Holy Spirit, 
dwelling in the souls and in the bodies of Christians, restores in 
them, when they are united in marriage, the righteousness of 
the original ordinance of marriage, and, farther, transfigures 
that ordinance, so that it is now no longer merely the marriage 
of Paradise, with its mysterious and, so to speak, sacramental 
character, but is that mystery transformed and raised to a 
higher level, corresponding to the higher level of life which is 
the prerogative of the redeemed. Thus Holy Matrimony in the 
Christian is said to be sacramental in a new and specially 
Christian sense. The Calvinist teaches that men are incapable 
of such indwelling holiness as the Catholic claims, and that 
there is therefore no scope for sacraments as the channels 
whereby such holiness is given and maintained. There is, he 
says, an imputation of our Lord’s merits to be hoped for, but 
that is independent of all sacraments. For the rest marriage 
remains what it ever was—a merely natural union. 

This treatise will discard the Calvinist doctrine, and accept 





1 The writer would guard himself against seeming to condemn any of. those 
who in the present day, with very different views, may style themselves 
Calvinists. It is the doctrine as he has stated it which alone he condemns ; but 
that doctrine, he believes, may fairly be called the Calvinistic doctrine. 


OF THE FALL 27 


that of Catholic Christianity. It will assume that the Christian 
is not merely accounted righteous because of merits which are 
in no way his, but that he is actually restored to holiness by 
the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in his soul and in his 
body. From this assumption it will follow that by the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit there comes a change in the 
character of all His relations, and not least in the character 
of the Divine institution of marriage. 

We may now enquire what could be the character of 
marriage when man was in a state of sin and death. It 
was not the pure and holy union of Eden, nor was it the 
sacramental union of the redeemed. It was the permitted 
union of persons in a state of sin and death. It was therefore 
an union in which as on the one hand the fulfilment of the 
Divine regulations with regard to marriage could not give to 
the estate itself the pure and holy character which rightly 
belonged to it, so on the other the disregard of those regulations, 
as in the cases of polygamy and divorce, could not transfer the 
persons from the state of grace into the state of sin, Inasmuch 
as they were in the state of sin already. What we accordingly 
find is, that with regard to certain transgressions of the law 
of marriage GoD as it were stands by, neither approving them 
nor adding to existing condemnations; but that with regard 
to other and more serious delinquencies the Divine condemna- 
tion is very clearly pronounced. In a state of sin some acts 
which were not devoid of a sinful character were yet relatively 
less important; and such transgressions might for the time be 
passed by for the hardness of men’s hearts, and lest worse 
should come. Polygamy and divorce seem to have been 
suffered in this way, while, speaking generally, unions of an 
incestuous character were repeatedly condemned. This teaching, 
that Gop “winked at” what was in fact a declension from His 
own ordinance, is abhorrent to many minds, as appearing to 
give the Divine sanction to the theory that expediency is the 
guide of morals; but consideration makes it abundantly clear 
that inasmuch as the lives of all men living in the time which 
elapsed between the Fall and the Redemption were alienated 
from Gop and under the cloud of sin, waiting for a redemption 


The 
Catholic 
doctrine 
assumed. 


Marriage 
after the 
Fall was 
the 
permitted 
union of 
persons in 
a state of 
sin, 


Con- 


cessions. 


Our Lord 
had 
afterwards 
to raise 
the whole 
moral law. 


28 HOLY MATRIMONY 


which had not yet been effected, there was in fact no such 
thing as holiness of life or living conformity with the Divine 
pattern in that high sense in which Christians understand these 
and similar expressions. Even those “after Gop’s own heart” 
still presented to Gop an alienated humanity, and the lower 
moral standard which it implies; and it is not only in the 
sphere of the laws of marriage, but in the whole realm of 
morals, that our Lord Jesus Christ found it necessary to raise 
and tighten the moral law. “ Ye have heard that it was said 
to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall 
kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, 
that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger 
of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, 
shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, 
Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire”! “Ye have 
heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I 
say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust ἡ 
after her hath committed adultery with her already in his 
heart.” “Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of 
old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform 
unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at 
all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of Gop; nor by 
the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet; nor by Jerusalem, 
for it is the city of the great King.”® “Ye have heard that it 
was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say 
unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth 
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”* “Ye 
have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, 
and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
and pray for them that persecute you.” It is, in fact, true to 
say that the moral law was only partially asserted so long 
as the supernatural life was withheld, but that when the 
supernatural life was accorded by the indwelling of the Holy 


1 8. Matt. v. 21, 22 (Revised Version). 
2 8. Matt. v. 27, 28 (Revised Version), 
3S. Matt. v. 83-35 (Revised Version). 
4 5, Matt. v. 38, 39 (Revised Version). 
5 8. Matt. v. 48, 44 (Revised Version). 


OF THE FALL 29 


Ghost it became a condition of the maintenance of that life 
that the moral law should be maintained in its fulness. 

It is however felt by some that, while that general principle 
may be true which asserts that in the state of sin induced 
by the Fall a less perfect moral law was enjoined in practice 
than is admissible in the Christian, yet the sufferance of such 
declensions from the law of marriage as polygamy and the 
facility of divorce is a sufferance too serious in itself, and too 
little supported by any probabilities of worse behind, to admit 
of its acceptance. To meet this difficulty it is necessary to 
enquire into the nature of that “corruption of all flesh,” into 
which man has shewn himself so prone to fall. The enquiry 
is distressing and humilating; but if it clear the ground as 
regards the great principles which underlie the history of the 
estate of marriage, it is worth the making. 


B. THE CORRUPTION OF ALL FLESH. 


The sin of our first parents, which has been followed by such The cor- 

calamitous consequences, was not a sin of sexual appetite; but eee ae 
no sooner was the rightful balance of human nature disturbed 
than the sins of sexual appetite became in a marked degree the ΝΙΝ in 
source of further sin and further degradation. It was on the Scripture. 
occasion of the lust of the “sons of Gop” for the “ daughters of Coes 
men,” however the passage may be interpreted, that Gop said, 
“My Spirit shall not always strive with man for ever, for that 
‘he also is flesh” (or, “for in their going astray they are flesh ”).* 
Two reasons again are assigned for the punishment of the Deluge; 
viz., (1) the corruption of all flesh, and (2) violence. “And the 
earth was (1) corrupt before Gop, and (2) the earth was filled 
with violence.”? The corruption is explained in the following 
verse: “And Gop saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt ; for 
all flesh” (basar) “had corrupted his way upon the earth.’”? 

Notwithstanding the lesson of the Deluge, the corruption of 
the flesh is soon found at work again, and again followed by © After 
signal punishments. The awful catastrophe which overtook ee ts 
the cities of the plain was the immediate result of a gross 


1 Gen, vi. 3. 2 Gen. vi. 11. 3 Gen. vi. 12. 


30 HOLY MATRIMONY 

particular instance of a fleshly sin against nature which was 
evidently habitual.t The reason which is assigned for the 
destruction of the Canaanites is that they have been guilty of 
fleshly corruption. In the twentieth chapter of Leviticus, at 
the close of a long enumeration of fleshly sins, chiefly (1) sins of 
incest, and (2) sins against nature, GOD goes on to command, 
“Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, 
and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell 
therein, vomit you not out. And ye shall not walk in the 
customs of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they 
did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.” 

The fleshly corruption which overtook mankind after the 
Fall is not less apparent from the instances in which it is 
mentioned without special reference to punishment, than in the 
examples which, Divine mercy has singled out as warnings. 
Polygamy is already found in the case of Lamech, only the 
sixth in descent from Adam. Of him we are told that he 
married Adah and Zillah.? Abram married his half-sister 
Sarai, and the narrative gives no indication of any sense of 
wrong in the matter. It is indeed recorded that Sarai was 
not Abram’s uterine sister, but only his father’s daughter.* 
Lot’s daughters do not appear to have been overwhelmed by 
any sense of shame, either in the anticipation or in the retro- 
spect of their incestuous unions with their father, although 
they seem to have known that he at least, when in his sober 
senses, would not readily have fallen in with their wishes. 
Nahor married his niece Milcah, the daughter of his brother 
Haran.® Jacob married two sisters.© Amram, the father of 
Moses and Aaron, married Jochebed, his father’s sister.’ 

There are indeed indications in the practices of the family 
of Abraham that those practices had their root in a moral 
condition, whether in the actual family or tribe from which 
Abraham came, or in the peoples round about them, which 
deeply shared the degradation of the corruption of all flesh. 
The marriage of Abram with Sarai was a marriage in exactly 


1Gen. X1x. 0. ἈΠΟ eke 2 29 3 Gen. iv. 19. Τοῦ, πὸ 2) 
9. Gen. ΣΙ 20: Ὁ (Θἢ XX1X,) 25,20. Ὁ ἰἰχύ τυ 


OF THE FALL 3 
the same relation as that exemplified at a later date by the sin 
of Amnon with Tamar, a sin in that case regarded with no 
little horror! Yet in the case of the union of Abram and 
Sarai there is no sense of sin or expression of penitence. In 
calling the father of the chosen race to come out and to be 
separate Gop does not seem to have required that he should in 
a moment shake himself free from the conventional standard of 
morals which commended itself to the men about him. Yet 
it is worthy of remark that Gop suffered the union of Abram 
and Sarai to remain unfruitful during all the years of natural 
fruitfulness, a childlessness which is the very curse assigned by 
the Mosaic code to another case of the marriage of near kin; 
and that when at last it pleased GoD, in making a covenant 
with Abraham, to promise him seed from Sarah, it was not till 
she was ninety years old, and “it had ceased to be with her 
after the manner of women.” It was not therefore till super- 
natural intervention was an obvious need, and it was also not 
till her personality had, as it were, been transformed and 
sanctified by the Divine imposition of the name of Sarah in 
place of that of Sarai. Again, stress laid upon relationship 
through the mother, and carelessness regarding relationship 
through the father, are now familiar to historical students 
as indications of a moral condition in which paternity is 
difficult to assign. Abraham says of his wife that “she is the 
daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother.”? 
Nahor married the daughter of his brother Haran. Amram 
married his father’s sister.t If such a conventional tone of 
morality be understood, the sin of Lot’s daughters becomes 
more intelligible.© When Sarai found herself barren she asked 
Abraham to take Hagar, not primarily that he might have the 
consolation of offspring, which she had not been able to afford 
him, but that she might have such offspring. “I pray thee, 
go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by 
her.” Evidently the customary law of the tribe assigned 





1 2 Sam. xiii. Yet even Tamar says, ‘‘This evil in sending me away is 
greater than the other that thou didst to me.” 
2 Gen, xx. -12. 2 Gen tx. 90. 4 Exod. vi. 20. 
© Gen. xix. 32. SV Gen SVL. 2. 


Outside 
Holy 
Scripture. 


yey HOLY MATRIMONY 


relationship in some way through the women. If there was 
any question of adoption, the adoption was to be by the wife 
rather than by the husband;' and the recognised method by 
which such adoption was effected was that the wife should call 
upon the husband to become the father of a child by some 
slave-woman who was the property of the wife. Here again we 
have evidence of the same low moral condition—a condition 
which probably corresponded with the prevailing sentiment of 
the tribes around. The custom may have been brought by 
Terah’s family from Ur of the Chaldees, from that ancient 
Shamiro-Accadian race? whose marvellous story 1s now being 
spelled out from the monuments; or again, less probably, in 
view of Isaac’s feeling of aversion to the daughters of Heth, 
it may have been adopted in Haran. In any case it seems 
to tell its tale) The Levirate custom, which will be considered 
in the next chapter, appears also to have its roots in a low 
moral condition. 

Holy Scripture therefore contains many notices of the cor- 
ruption of all flesh. 

Outside the record of Holy Scripture a considerable number 
of facts have now been brought to light which go to shew that 
promiscuity and polyandry in various forms, as also incestuous 
unions and unnatural crimes, have been very widely practised 
by the various races of mankind. 


(a) Polyandry. 


Even in the history of the great Aryan stock we find traces 
of this. Thus in the Mahabharata, one of the principal Indian 
epics, the five Pandava princes are married to one wife— 
Draupadi. “ΠΟΥ is it,” asks Professor Max Miller, “that the 
five Pandava princes, who are at first represented as receiving 
so strictly Brahmanic an education, . . . could afterwards have 
been married to one wife? This is in plain opposition to 
Brahmaniec law, where it is said, ‘They are many wives of one 
man; not many husbands of one wife.’ Such a contradiction 





1 See also Gen. xxx. 3, 8, 19. 
2 For the Shamiro-Accadian race, see Sayce, The Ancient Empires of the 
East, 1884, pp. 91, sqq. 


OF THE FALL 30 


can only be accounted for by the admission that in this case 
epic tradition in the mouth of the people was too strong to 
allow this essential and curious feature in the life of its heroes 
to be changed.”! “In other words,” says McLennan, “ we have 
here the tradition that the races among whom the five principal 
heroes of the Mahabharata were born and fostered practised 
polyandry.”? Another passage of the Mahabharata® describes 
the early morality of the Aryans in these terms: “ Women 
were formerly unconfined, and roved about at their pleasure, 
independent (within their respective castes). Though in their 
youthful innocence they abandoned their husbands, they were 
guilty of no offence; for such was the rule in early times. 
This ancient custom is even now the law for creatures born 
as brutes, which are free from lust and anger. This custom 
is supported by authority, and is observed by great Rishis, 
and it is still practised among the northern Kurus.” 

Dr. Muir, in a note, refers to the legend that the practice of 
promiscuous intercourse was abolished by a certain Svetaketu, 
son of the Rishi Uddalaka, who was incensed at seeing his 
mother led away by a strange Brahman, and who therefore 
successfully endeavoured to establish the rule of conjugal 
fidelity. 

In India what was once apparently the rule is now the 
exception; but the cases of exception which have survived, or 
which human depravity has since developed, are remarkable. 
In nearly all the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan districts we 
find the same limited but incestuous form of polyandry which 
was practised by the Pandavas; that is to say, all the brothers 
of a family, without restriction of numbers, share ἃ wife 
among them. The Maleres and Poleres of the Malabar coast 
in southern India are stated to have the same custom. A 
ruder but less incestuous form of polyandry is found among 
the Nairs, where the husbands are not necessarily brothers. 
Hamilton says that a Nair woman can have as many as twelve 
husbands; and he further states that a Nair man may find 


1 Max Miiller, 4 History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1859), p. 47. 
2 McLennan, Studies in Ancient History (1886), p. 119. 
3 Dr. Muir, Sanskrit Teats (1860), part 11. p 336. 

D 


34 HOLY MATRIMONY 


place in several combinations of husbands; that is to say, he 
may be connected with several wives. This approaches to 
mere promiscuity. 

Not to dwell too long upon this painful subject, it will suffice 
to quote the following rapid survey from Mr. McLennan’s 
Primitive Marriage, a work which brings together much 
valuable material, though the conclusions which the author 
deduces from it are more than questionable: 


“Let us first see what is the area over which polyandry now prevails. 
It prevails universally in Tibet, and is common in the Himalayan 
and sub-Himalayan regions adjoining Tibet, in the valley of Kashmir, 
among the Spiti in Ladak; in Kistewar and Sirmor. It occurs 
among the Telingese; in the Sivalik mountains, and in Kasia. There 
are unmistakeable traces of its existence till recently in Gurhwal, 
Sylhet, and Cachar. Farther south in India we find polyandry 
among the Tudas ef the Nilgherry Hills, the Coorgs of Mysore, and 
the Nairs, the Maleres, and Poleres of Malabar. We find it off 
the Indian coast in Ceylon, and going eastward, strike on it as an 
ancient though now almost superseded custom in New Zealand, and 
in one or two of the Pacific Islands. Going northward, we meet it 
again in the Aleutian Islands; and taking the continent to the west 
and north of the Aleutians, we find it among the Koryaks to the 
north of the Okhotsk Sea. Crossing the Russian Empire to the 
west side, we find polyandry among the Saporogian Cossacks. We 
thus have traced it at points half round the globe. This is not all 
however. Polyandry is found in several parts of Africa and of 
America. We have the authority of Humboldt for its prevalence 
among the tribes on the Orinoco, and he also vouches for its former 
prevalence in Lancerota, one of the Canary [5]. πη 5.1} From ancient 


[’] Turner’s Tibet, 1800, p. 348; Vigne’s Kashmir, 1842, vol. i. Ὁ. 87; 
Cunningham’s Ladak, 1854, p. 306; Buchanan’s Journey, etc., 1807, vol. ii. 
pp. 408-412 ; Archer’s Upper India, 1833, vol. i. p. 185 ; Latham’s Descriptive 
Ethnology, 1859, vol. i. pp. 24-28, vol. ii. pp. 398, 496, 462; Humboldt’s 
Personal Narrative (Williams’s Translation), 1819, chap. i. vol. 1. p. 84, and 
vol. v. part 11. p. 549; Hamilton’s New Accownt of the Hast Indies, 1727, vol. i. 
pp. 274, 808; Reade’s Savage Africa, p. 43; Erkman’s 7 γωυοῖς in Siberia, 
vol. ii. p. 531; Marriage Ceremonies, by Seignior Gaya, 1698, pp. 70, 96; 
Tennent’s Ceylon, 1859, vol. ii. p. 429; Legend of Rupe; Grey’s Polynesian 
Mythology, 1854, p. 81; A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas, 1860, p. 202 ; 
Fisher’s Memoir of Sylhet, etc., in Journal of Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. ix. 
p. 8384; <Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 18. Our information regarding the Saporogian 
Cossacks has been obtained from Sir John Mc Neill. 


OF THE FALL 35 


history we learn that polyandry at one time existed over even a 
greater area. ‘Traces of it remained in the time of Tacitus among 
the Germans. And while in certain cantons of Media, according to 
Strabo,! polygynia was authorised by express law, which ordained 
every inhabitant to maintain at least seven wives, in other cantons 
the opposite rule was in force—a woman was allowed to have many 
husbands, and they looked with contempt on those who had less 
than five. Cesar informs us that in his time polyandry prevailed 
among the Britons.2 We find direct evidence of its existence 
among the Picts in the Irish Nennius,* not to mention traces of it 
in the Pictish Laws of Succession. Further, we find traditions of it 
among the Hindus,‘ especially among the Rajputs. And we find it 
among the Getes of Transoxiana (the Yuti or Yuechi of the Chinese 
historians).”° 

It is, therefore, only too certain that among the many forms 
of the corruption of all flesh the sinful practice of polyandry 
has been found to prevail among various peoples, and at various 
times. 

(ὁ) Promiscuity. 


A lower depth is reached in the practice of merely promis- 
cuous intercourse. Among ancient examples of this gross 
habit may be mentioned the Massagetae, the Agathyrsi, and 
the Spartans. For modern examples Mr. McLennan may 
again be quoted : 


“It may be well to append some modern examples of promiscuity, 
and of practices which have the same effect in rendering uncertain 
male parentage. The Ansarians have their wives in common; the 
people of Martawan, of the tribe of Ansarians, let out their wives 
and daughters.© The Keiaz (Paropamisans) lend their wives to their 
guests ;’ so do the Eimauk (Caubul) :8 so, we are informed, do the 
Kandyans. The Mpongme (Africa) lend wives ;? so do the Koryaks 





[ΠῚ } ΠῚ 798. 
[7] De Bello Gallico, lib. v. c. 14. 
[5] Appendix l. 
[*] Tod’s Annals, etc., of Rajasthan, 1829, p. 48. 
5 McLennan, Studies in Ancient History, 1886, pp. 97-99. 
[] Volney, Travels, chap. xxvii. 
[7] Latham, Des. Ethn. vol. ii. p. 246. 
[5] Elphinstone, 1815, p. 483. 
[5] Reade, Savage Africa, p. 259. 
D2 


36 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and Chukchi, who lend out daughters as well (North-east Siberia).! 
The Koryaks are also polyandrous. The same disregard of conjugal 
fidelity appeared in Caindu, Cascar (Turkestan, Tartary), and in 
Cumana.? We find it now among the Aimaks.? It was customary 
in Kamul.4 Montesquieu® remarks on the licentious wantonness of 
the women of Patan, against which the men had to adopt measures 
of self-protection. Mr. Wilson, of Mussoorie, in an admirable report 
on the Puharies of Gurhwal,® says of the Gungarees and Perbuttees : 
‘Their immorality is something incredible—chastity being little 
appreciated even where it does exist.’”? 


In the saine connexion may be quoted a passage from Mr. 
Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology : 


“In Benguela (Congo), according to Bastian, poor maidens were 
led about before marriage, in order to acquire money by prostitution. 
From Herrera we learn that the Mexicans had an identical custom : 
‘Parents used, when the maidens were marriageable, to send them to 
earn their portions, and accordingly they ranged about the country in 
a shameful manner till they had got enough to marry them off. 
Bancroft says the ancient people of the Isthmus of Darien thought 
‘prostitution was not infamous; noble ladies held as a maxim that 
it was plebeian to deny anything asked of them’—an idea like that 
of the Andamanese, among whom good manners are thought to 





require concessions of this kind. Equally strange are the marital 
sentiments displayed by certain peoples, both extant and extinct. 
Of the Assanyeh Arabs, whose marriages are for so many days in the 
week, usually four, Petherick tells us that during a preliminary 
negotiation the bride’s mother protests against ‘binding her daughter 
to a due observance of that chastity which matrimony is expected to 
command for more than two days in the week’; and there exists on 
the part of the man a duly adapted sentiment ; the husband, allowing 
the wife to disregard all marital obligations during the off days, even 
considers an intrigue with some other man as a compliment to his 
own taste. Some of the Chibchas of ancient Central America 
betrayed a kindred feeling. Not simply were they indifferent to 





[1 Erkman, vol. ii. p. 531 ; and vide Cochrane’s Journey, 1825, vol. i. p. 336. 
[?] Gaya, p. 104; Marco Polo. [3] Des. Ethno. vol. i. p. 333. 

[4] Marco Polo, Bohn’s edition, p. 110. [5] B. 16, ch. viii. 

[61 A Summer Ramble in the Himalayas, p. 182. 

7 McLennan, Studies in Ancient History (1886), Note on p. 96. 

8 As regards the Andamanese this statement is now denied. O. D. W. 


OF THE FALL OF 


virginity in their brides, but if their brides were virgins ‘thought 
them unfortunate and without luck, as they had not inspired affection 
in men; accordingly they disliked them as miserable women.’”! 


It is sufficient to merely refer to that vast population of 
fallen women who have ministered to the vice of men in all 
ages and in all lands, not excluding the countries of Christendom. 

Promiscuity, then, in various forms, is one of the phases of 
the corruption of all flesh. 


(c) Incestuous practices. 


Those incestuous practices which appear to have been the 
main cause of Gop’s punishment of the Canaanites have not 
failed to recur in other communities and at other periods. Mr. 
Herbert Spencer may again be quoted: 


“The Chippewayans ‘cohabit occasionally with their own mothers, 
and frequently espouse their sisters and daughters’; and Langsdorff 
asserts the hke of the Kadiaks. So, too, among the Karens of 
Tenasserim, ‘matrimonial alliances between brother and sister, or 
father and daughter, are not uncommon.’ To these cases from 
America and Asia may be added a case from Africa. To keep the 
royal blood pure, the kings of Cape Gonsalves and Gaboon are 
accustomed to marry their grown-up daughters, and the queens marry 
their eldest sons. 

“Incest of a kind that is a degree less shocking is exemplified by 
more numerous peoples. Marriage between brother and sister was 
not prohibited by the ‘barbarous Chechemecas’ and the ‘ Panuchese.’ 
The people of Cali ‘married their nieces, and some of the lords their 
sisters.’ ‘In the district of New Spain four or five cases... of 
marriage with sisters were found.’ In Peru, the ‘Yncas from the 
first established it as a very stringent law and custom that the heir 
to the kingdom should marry his eldest sister, legitimate both on the 
side of the father and the mother.’ So is it in Polynesia. Among 
the Sandwich Islanders near consanguineous marriages are frequent 
in the royal family—brothers and sisters sometimes marrying ; and 
among the Malagasy, ‘the nearest of kin marry, even brother and 
sister, if they have not the same mother.’ 2 





1H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ὃ 280. 
2 Ibid. § 281, p. 606. 


Signifi- 
cance of 
these 
records in 
the light 
of modern 
contro- 
versies. 


38 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(41) Offences against nature. 


Under this head are to be found a whole array of terrible 
possibilities from the “hardness” of men’s “hearts.” It is not 
necessary to follow them in any detail. Students will know 
that the sins spoken of by 5. Paul in the first chapter of his 
epistle to the Romans were no monopoly of ancient Rome.* 


From this brief but sickening review it is sufficiently clear 
that there are possibilities of human degradation by the side of 
which the practices of polygamy and divorce seem to be 
innocence itself. What marvel then, if while all mankind lay 
outside the grace conferred through the redemption, the mercy 
of Gop was merciful to polygamy and divorce? The original 
institution of marriage was blurred and blighted in a hundred 
ways, and in such a wreck polygamy and divorce were but as 
minor blemishes. Accordingly, in the enquiry which will 
occupy the next chapter, we shall find that marriage after the 
Fall and outside Christianity has commonly admitted one or 
both of these features. Even in the case of the chosen people 
it pleased Gop for the hardness of their hearts to suffer these 
practices to remain without added condemnation. The grace 
of paradise had been taken away; the Pentecostal gift was not 
yet given; and GoD, as it were, stood by. It was reserved for 
the Christian Church, in the power of the indwelling Spirit of 
Gop, to rehabilitate the Divine institution of marriage as at 
once monogamous and indissoluble. 

3efore leaving the subject of the corruption of all flesh, it 
may be worth while to glance at the significance of such records 
as those which have been cited, in the light of modern contro- 
versies. Writers hke Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. McLennan, 
who discard the narrative of the Fall, and are prepared to 
expect an upward tendency from lower to higher social types 
throughout the history of the human race, are somewhat prone 
to infer from the existence of low types of the sexual relations 
that such types are the earliest, and that it is from such types 
that the comparatively high moral tone of most civilized 





1 Romans 1.2642 /; 


OF THE FALL 39 


communities, both Christian and non-Christian, has been 
developed. Such an inference is in fact gratuitous ; and indeed 
Mr. Herbert Spencer frankly adinits that viewed in the heht 
of it many of the facts he cites are anomalous. He says: 


“While the facts show us the general association between the 
rudest forms of social existence and the most degraded relations of 
the sexes, they do not shew us that social progress and progress 
towards a higher type of family life are uniformly connected. 
Various anomalies ineet us. 

“Unenduring unions characterize many of the lower races: and 
yet the miserable Veddah, lower than most in their social state, form 
very enduring unions. Bailey writes, ‘Divorce is unknown among 
them. . . . 1 have heard a Veddah say ‘‘ Death alone separates 
husband and wife”: a trait in which their Kandyan neighbours, 
otherwise superior, differ from them widely.’ 

“Nor does the diminution of incestuous connexions preserve a 
constant ratio to social evolution. Those extreme forms of them 
which we have noted among some of the most degraded races of 
North America are paralleled among royal families in African 
kingdoms of considerable size; while forms of them a degree less 
repulsive are common to savage and semi-civilised. 

“Though that type of family life in which one wife has several 
husbands is said to occur among some of the lowest tribes, as the 
Fuegians, yet it is by no means common among the lowest; while 
we meet with it among relatively advanced peoples in Ceylon, in 
Malabar, and in Thibet. And the common arrangement of many 
wives to one husband, almost universally allowed and practised by 
savages, not only survives in semi-civilised societies, but has held its 
ground in societies of considerably developed types, past and present.” ! 


Viewed from the Christian standpoint, which accepts the 
narrative of the Fall, the “corruption of all flesh” in its various 
developments is susceptible of an explanation as easy as it is 
lamentable, and as consistent as it is easy. This corruption, as 
we find it in the past and present practice of fallen man, is not 
an advance on an original condition of brutality, but a falling 
away from the high moral standard of the state of innocence. 
Where the corruption is greatest, there the fall has been 
- greatest; where the corruption is least, there the fall has been 





' Ἢ, Spencer, Principles of Suciology, § 282, p. 607. 


No 
uniform 
advance 
towards 
higher 
types, 


The 
Christian 
explana- 
tion. 


40) HOLY MATRIMONY 


least. The corruption again has been by no means of uniform 
rapidity of growth, for it has depended largely on the free will 
of each individual person, and so, more generally, on the free 
will of each community. Nor has the progress of the corrupted 
condition been necessarily always in one direction, for fallen 
man is not found uniformly tending towards the light, though 
with different velocities; nor 1s he found hopelessly sinking 
into more Cimmerian darkness, though with varying degrees of 
resistance. There is in fact neither continuous fall nor con- 
tinuous rise to be traced either uniformly or very generally. 
Some peoples, after centuries of moral probity, have fallen mto 
eross degradations, as was the case with the Romans. Other 
peoples which have been immersed in similar gross degradations 
in a distant past have succeeded in throwing them off. ‘This 
would appear to have been the case with the great Aryan stock 
in India, which, at one time given to the practice of polyandry 
—a practice still illustrated in certain of its outer tribes—1is 
now as a race probably not inferior in morality to any non- 
Christian community. Among the Jews themselves the sins of 
incestuous connexion appear to have been practically put a stop 
to by the Mosaic code, without the assistance of the indwelling 
Spirit vouchsafed to the baptised. Similarly, doubtless, among 
other nations the graver and less natural offences have been 
from time to time thrown off by a moral effort blessed by Gop. 
_ While, however, the moral relations are thus found throughout 
history rising here and falling there, the Christian belief 
recognises as constantly at work a Divine process of retribution, 
which blots out the Canaans and Sodoms of the earth, and 
blesses the purer races with manifold increase. Thus a large 
proportion of the types of gross degradation cited as existing at 
the present day, so far from having before them a vista of 
necessary moral advance, are obviously in that last stage of 
debasement which is the immediate precursor of annihilation— 
a stage which in their case does certainly not manifest the 
early strivings of a creature emerging from the condition of the 
brute into the nobler life of humanity, but is rather the result 
of hundreds, or even thousands, of years of degraded existence, 
now at last about to be no longer suffered to exist. 


CHAPTER V 


ὌΣΣΕ ΟΣ ΕΣ ΕΝ ΠΕΣ PALL, 
ANISOGT SID CHRISTIAN ΡΤ 


T was the chief aim of the preceding chapter to shew that The 
if, as a matter of history, we find in the period after the Fall ΟΝ 

an absence of direct prohibition with regard to polygamy, divorce, historical 
and a certain union of near affinity, there is for this a reason in 
the nature of the case. It will be the aim of the present 
chapter to enquire what, as a matter of history, the estate of 
“marriage in the period after the Fall actually was. 

Marriage after the Fall, considered historically for the pur- 
pose of this volume, will naturally fall into two divisions, viz., 
(1) marriage as practised by the Hebrew people and (2) marriage 
as found among all other peoples from the Fall to the coming of 
the Holy Ghost at the Great Pentecost, and by all other non- | 
Christian peoples since the Great Pentecost. The Hebrew 
practice will be far the most important to investigate. What 
Gop suffered in the way of laxity in the case of His own chosen 
people “for the hardness of their hearts” we may fairly conclude 
would, for the same reason, be suffered a fortiort among the 
outer heathen. 


A. MARRIAGE AMONG THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. 
(1) Prior to the Mosare Code. a 
a 


Beginning with the line of Seth as we find it after the Fall Marriage 
among the 


the only indication we have with regard to this family of Chosen 
: : ; Bae F : __ People. 
particular divergences from the original marriage law is to 6 
ἃ 2 ᾿ : 1. Prior 
found in the narrative (if this be applicable) of the “sons of to the 


ἘΠ ΤΡ Mosat 
Gop” who “saw the daughters of men that they were fair,” 6o. 


The Jine 
of Seth. 


Marriages 
of near kin. 


4? HOLY MATRIMONY 


and “who took them wives of all that they chose.”! This may 
indicate polygamy or even promiscuity: nor can the line of 
Seth be exempted from its share in the general statement that 
“all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.’? Polygamy 
is not otherwise recorded of the line of Seth before the flood, 
the only recorded instance being that of Lamech of the family 
of Cain’ Clearly, however, no inference assuming general 
monogamy can be drawn from the scantiness of intimation on 
such a point in so brief a narrative. At the time of the deluge 
we find that Noah and his three sons had one wife each. “In. 
the self-same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and 
Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives 
of his sons with them, into the ark.”* It is not necessarily to 
be inferred from this that monogamy was the rule immediately 
before the Flood. Noah’s family were treated by Gop with 
exceptional mercy when the rest of mankind were swept away, 
and swept away because, for one reason, “all flesh had corrupted 
his way upon the earth.” It is not therefore unreasonable to 
suspect that the sexual relations of Noah’s family did not 
represent the ordinary condition of things outside, but were of 
exceptional purity. 

Before passing on to the post-diluvian period, it may be as 
well to notice here that Seth, to perpetuate his line at all, 
must obviously have married either his sister or his niece, and 
if his niece, a miece herself the daughter of a brother and a 
sister. The teaching of the subsequent Mosaic Law, as of 
the Christian Church, is that such unions are unlawful, as 
“uncovering the nakedness” of “near kin”; nor is there any 
indication that, although Gop might suffer such an union, it 
eould ever, under the present conditions of the race, be free 
from a sinful character. On the other hand, it 1s obvious from 
the nature of the case that if, while yet in the unfallen state, 
man had obeyed the command or claimed the benediction 
which bade him to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish 
the earth,” the only way in which this could have been effected 
in the ordinary course of human generation would have 





1 Gen. vi. 2. ὦ Gen. vied, 
3 Gen. iv. 19. Not the Lamech of Gen. vy. 28. ~- * Gen. vii. 13: 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 43, 


involved the marriage of at least one brother with one sister. 
It is with some diffidence that a suggestion is here put forward 
by way of meeting this difficulty. The sin of incest is derived 
from the “uncovering of the nakedness” of “near kin”; and 
the shame of nakedness is itself a result of the Fall. May 
it not then be reasonably questioned whether the sin of 
incest was a thing possible save as the result of sin? In 
other words, whether the union of near kin in a state of 
innocence could involve any shame at all? Doubtless marriage 
between ascendants and descendants would be excluded. Such 
marriages could never be if there was no physical death to 
dissolve the first tie; and if we understand that the blessedness 
of Paradise did not exclude physical death, the obviously 
unsuitable character of such unions would doubtless have 
availed to prevent them. With regard to the marriage of 
brother and sister, however, it may be said, that as on the one 
hand such a marriage was necessary if the Divine intention 
in the multiplication of the race was to be fulfilled, so 
on the other hand, since in such marriages there was no 
nakedness to uncover, there could be in them no shameful 
incestuous character to detract from the purity of the un- 
fallen state. 

When, however, the Fall had taken place, the first and most 
startling result of it was that sense of shame which led our 
first parents to clothe their nakedness; and when Seth married 
his sister or his niece, as the case may be, it was of necessity a 
shameful union, just as such an union would be shameful now 3 
shameful, not because of a positive law forbidding it, but 
essentially, as involving an “uncovering of nakedness” become 
shameful as a result of the Fall. And it is most noticeable, 
as we go on in the history of the chosen people, that while 
polygamy and divorce, which offend against the original 
institution of marriage, appear to have been “winked at” to 
a certain extent as only to be expected in the circumstances 
of a race fallen and not yet redeemed, the sins of incest, the 
very possibility of which, if this theory be right, is a product 
of the Fall itself, are, with one remarkable exception, made 
the subject of detailed prohibitions, while the commission of 


Relation of 
incest to 
the Fall. 


The 
descend- 
ants of 
Shem. 


Abraham. 


AA HOLY MATRIMONY 


them in certain cases is given as a sufficient reason for the 
destruction of. a people. 

In the history of the descendants of Shem after the Flood 
there is no indication as to the character of marriage as found 
among them till we come to the family of Terah, the father of 
Abraham and of his brothers Nahor and Haran. As noticed 
in the last chapter, we here come upon very lax customs as 
regards the intermarriage of near kin, Abram marrying his 
paternal half-sister Sarai, and Nahor his niece Milcah, the 
daughter of his elder brother Haran.!' Both these descriptions 
of union were subsequently prohibited by the Mosaic code. 
Polygamy again is found practised by Abraham with no 
indication that there was any novelty in the custom, when, at 
the instance of Sarai, he takes Hagar to be his subordinate but 
rightful wife.? The history of Hagar also supplies an instance 
of divorce, which is indeed inseparable from a polygamous 
system, and might with reason be inferred from it. Sarah 
requires Abraham to “cast out this bondwoman and her son,’ 
and no doubt as to the right to so cast her out is anywhere 
expressed. “The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight 
because of his son” ;* and then follows, what is most worthy of 
remark, Gop’s direct sanction of the divorcee in terms which 
amount indeed to a command to effect it. “And God said unto 
Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the 
lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah. hath 
said unto thee, hearken unto her voice.’® It is no doubt the 
ease that the divorce restored Abraham to a monogamous state, 
and that the blessing upon Ishmael which immediately followed 
may be said to have been dependent upon and to have formed 
part of the command to divorce; but it does not seem possible 
to see in the Divine action at this time any endeavour to restore 
the duty of monogamy, if we compare with it the law of the 
Mosaic code, no less Divinely sanctioned, which provides for 
the rightful treatment of a subordinate slave-wife. The only 





1 See p. 30. 
2 Gen. xvi. 3: “Gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife (ishah).” 
3 renexxi.1L0, Ὁ (δον, ἔσο all; ErGen. ον 2; 6 Exodus xxi. 10. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 45 


reasonable explanation is that both polygamy and divorce were 
admitted, though it could not be fairly assumed that there 
would have been the same facility in divorcing Sarah as the 
first or principal wife, as there was in divorcing Hagar the 
subordinate slave-wife. It may be remarked by the way that 
in the history of Hagar, while no doubt the facts of Abraham's 
polygamy and of divorce by Abraham remain, the ruling 
circumstance throughout is the relation of Sarah and Hagar. 
It is Sarah who owns the bondwoman, Sarah who submits her 
to Abraham’s embraces, Sarah who claims the child, and no less 
Sarah who insists on the expulsion. 

Isaac had but one wife; but we find Jacob the husband of Jacob. 
four, and becoming by these four wives the father of the twelve 
tribes, which GoD so abundantly blessed. The two wives of 
recognised position, Leah and Rachel, were also sisters; a case 
of polygamy expressly prohibited at a later date in the Mosaic 
code. The long period of Egyptian sojourn was doubtless not pam 
free from the custom of polygamy, since we find it practised in Egypt. 
both before and after. Jahn? indeed infers that polygamy must 
have been very prevalent, inasmuch as, in the time of Moses, 
while the men above twenty years of age numbered 603,500, 
the first-born males, including children, were only 22,373 in 
number.? It is difficult to estimate to what extent the Hebrews 
adopted the practices of their Egyptian masters; but that these 
included alliances of near kin may be ἘΠ ἢ from the fact 
that in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, before an enumeration 
of incestuous marriages and unlawful lusts, Egypt is classed 
with Canaan as an example to be avoided. “ After the doings 
of the land of Eeypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and 
after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, 
shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” * 





1 Leviticus xviii. 18. 

2 Jahn, Biblical Archeology, ὃ 151. 
3 Numbers ii. 42. 

4 Leviticus xviii. 3. 


2. The 
Mosaic 
Code 


(i) 
Polygamy. 


(a) Pro- 
visions of 
the Code. 


46 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(2) Lhe Mosaic Code. 


After the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, we come 
to the comparative fulness of ight which is shed on the practice 
of the Hebrew nation by the Mosaic code.! It will be convenient 
to divide our investigation as to the teaching of this code, with 
any illustrations from the later history, under three heads; viz., 
(1) the relaxations of the original law permitted in the matter 
of polygamy, (2) similar relaxations as to divorce, and (3) the 
injunctions controlling the marriage of near kin, with the 
remarkable relaxation known as the Levirate law. 


: (1.) Polygamy. 
(a) Provisions of the Code. 


The regulations of the Mosaic code which affect polygamy 
are as follows: 

(a) A Woman to her Sister, The injunction is given: 

Leviticus xvii. 18: 

Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her 
nakedness, beside the other in her life time. 

This may either be interpreted to forbid incestuous polygamy 
with the wife’s sister, the explanation of the passage most 
usually adopted among the Jews; or it may be taken, as the 
sect of the Karaites did in fact take it, to forbid polygamy 
altogether. It will be presently seen that if the latter inter- 
pretation is the correct one, the injunction remained practically 
a dead letter. 

(8) Slave Wives. Nor did the Mosaic code expect or require 
that polygamy should cease, for in the ordinances which 
regulate the taking of female servants in marriage, the rule 
occurs : 

Exodus xxi. 10: 

If he take him another wife ; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, 
shall he not diminish. 





1 In the following pages the laws of the Pentateuch are taken as one system ; 
but it will not be difficult for those who accept the conclusions of a recent 
criticism to apply them to the various passages cited. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL AT 


It must be allowed that this regulation of polygamy tolerates 
if it does not approve it. 

(y) Royal Polygamy. The ordinances affecting the kings of 
the future contain the prohibition, 


Deuteronomy xvii. 17: | 

Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. 
where we understand that what is condemned is that unre- 
strained license of Asiatic monarchs, of which Solomon is so 
notable an example. No limit of number is given, though 
tabbis in after ages very commonly taught, as Musulmans 
teach now, that the number of wives should not exceed four. 

(6) Ceremonial Checks, The ceremonial uncleanness follow- 
ing the copula, taken together with the right of each wife, 
amounts to a distinct check upon the practice of polygamy. 

(e) Lhe Levirate Custom. The Levirate custom will be 
presently considered as regards its peculiar feature. With 
respect to the point of polygamy, it is often overlooked that 
the provisions of the Levirate law seem to have been only 
applicable “if brethren dwell together.”? It does not therefore 
appear that a surviving brother who had already a separate 
establishment would be bound by the provisions of the Levirate 
law. In a society which favoured polygamy the fulfilment of 
the idea of the Levirate custom by a married brother may 
nevertheless have held ground. 

(ὦ Laws Governing the Distribution of Property. The law 
governing the distribution of property among the sons of two 
wives must be held to give a certain sanction to such marriage 
with two wives. 


Deuteronomy xxi. 15-17: 


15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have 
born him children, both the beloved and the hated ; and 7/ the firstborn son be 
her’s that was hated : 

16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, 
that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the 
hated, which is indeed the firstborn : 

17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving 
him a double portion of all that he hath: for he ¢s the beginning of his strength ; 
the right of the firstborn ¢s his. 





L Bev. xv. 18. 2 Deut. xxv. 5. 


Summary. 


48 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(n) Captives of War. In connexion with these provisions the 
laws regulating the treatment of women taken captives of war 
must also be held to at once regulate and sanction polygamous 
unions. When a city is taken which is not a city of the land, 
but is “very far off,” the following ruling is made: 


Deuteronomy xx. 13-15: 

13 And when the Lorp thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou 
shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword : 

14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the 
city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat 
the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lorp thy God hath given thee. 

15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, 
which ave not of the cities of these nations. 


As regards the women, this is evidently the universal custom 
of the time; but the custom is to be restricted in the ease of 
the Israelite in three ways: . 

(1) The woman is to be free from solicitation for a month 
after capture. 

(2) She is then, if the man desire it, to be his wife. 

(3) If he tire of her he is not to sell her, but to let her go 
whither she will, because he has humbled her. 


Deuteronomy xxi. 10-14: 


10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lorp thy 
God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, 

11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto 
her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife ; 

12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house ; and she shall shave her 
head, and pare her nails ; 

13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall 
remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and 
after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy 
wife. 

14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her 
go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt 
not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her, 


Summing up the provisions of the Mosaic code as they affect 
polygamy, it appears 

(1) That they find the practice admitted, and 

(2) That they regulate and restrain it, but 

(5) That they do not condemn it (if, at least, the ordinary 
Jewish interpretation of Leviticus xvii. 18 hold good). 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 49 


(ὁ) Practice of the Hebrew People. 


Passing on to the actual practice of the nation after the 
promulgation of the Mosaic code, we find that “Gideon had bette 
threescore and ten sons of his body begotten, for he had many Hebrews. 
wives”; that Elkanah “had two wives; the name of the one 
was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah” ;? that 
Saul had wives which were afterwards given “into” David’s 
“bosom” 1:8 that David “took him more concubines and wives 
out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron” ;* that 
king Solomon “had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three 
hundred concubines” ;° that the sons of Issachar “had many 
wives and sons”;® that Hushim and Baara were the wives of 
Shaharaim ;’ that Rehoboam “took eighteen wives, and three- 
score concubines” ;° that Abijah “married fourteen wives” ;? 
and that Jehoiada took for Joash “two wives”;!° while 
polygamy must be inferred from the statements that Jair 
the Gileadite “had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts” ;¥4 
that Ibzan of Bethlehem had “thirty sons and_ thirty Polygamy 
daughters”; and that Abdon the son of Hillel “had forty πον τς 
505. 15. It should be noticed here, as before in the cases of ae 
Abraham and Jacob, that the practice of polygamy did not 
necessarily forfeit the Divine blessing. Elkanah, David, and 
Joash, not to mention other instances, were obviously the 
recipients of Gop’s favours while in the practice of polygamy. 

Holy Scripture contains no instances of polygamy in the The post- 

) . os a - 2h, ; Babylonian 
post-Babylonian period, and it appears probable that the perioa. 
practice was comparatively rare. The poverty which makes 
it a difficult matter to support more than one family would 
sufficiently explain this. It is for this reason that the taking 
of a second wife is at the present day the exception rather 
than the rule among the Musulmans in India. [ is, however, 
doubtful whether polygamy was altogether discontinued by the 


Instances, 





1 Judges viii. 30. 2 1 Samuel i. 2. 3 ὁ Samuel xii. 8. 
Ὁ Ὡς 
4 2 Samuel v. 13. > 1 Kings xi 3. 6 1 Chronicles vii. 4. 
9 ~ 
7 1 Chronicles viii. 8. 8 2 Chronicles xi, 21. 9 2 Chronieles xiii, 21. 
2 Chronicles xxiv. 8. ὦ" Judges x. 4. 2 Judges xii. 9. 


13 Judges xii. 14, 
EK 


50 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Jews at any time prior to the coming of our Lord. In the 
Mishna, which is believed to have been compiled about 
A.D. 220, there is constant reference throughout the treatise 
Yebamoth to the two or more wives of one man, the appellation 
used being ¢tsaroth,! 1.6., troubles, adversaries, or rivals, because, 
as Kimchi observes in his commentary to 1 Samuel i. 6, where 
this word occurs, wives are commonly sources of trouble, 
jealousy, and vexation to each other.? Josephus states that 
Herod the Great had no less than nine wives at one time.? 
His statement is however made in a way which implies that 
such polygamy was unusual, and a matter which might be 
expected to excite surprise. In our Lord’s time polygamy 
does not appear to have been a present difficulty, if we may 
judge from the entire silence of the Gospels on the subject. 
After the time of our Lord, as before it, the Jewish doctors, 
so far as their teaching was concerned, recognised polygamy 
as a permissible practice. It will be sufficient to quote 
Maimonides (1135 A.p—1204 a.p.) :4 


“ΤῸ is permissible to marry any number of wives, even a hundred, 
and that either all at once, or one after another; nor has a wife 
previously married any power to hinder a man in this, provided only 
that he have the means of affording food, raiment, and the duty of 
marriage in such wise as is suitable to each of them.” 


While, however, teachers continued to advocate the rightful- 
ness of polygamy, the practice of it, at least among the Jews of 
Northern and Central Europe, seems to have been discoun- 
tenanced. Polygamy was actually prohibited under pain of 
excommunication, except in certain specified cases, by the 
Rabbi Gershom ben Jehudah at the Synod of Worms in the 
year 1020, or a hundred years before the utterance of 
Maimonides just cited. In Spain indeed the interdict of 
R. Gershom was never recognised, and the polygamy of the 


1 AS in Lesam.-1..0. 

2 De Sola’s Mishna, treatise Yebamoth. 

3 Josephus, Antiquities, xvii. 1, § 3. 

* Maimonides, Halach-Ishoth, cap. 14, quoted by Selden, De Jure Naturali 
et Gentiwm, lib. 5, Ὁ: 6. 

5 Gritz, Geschichte der Juden, v. 405-507. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 1 


Jews was even expressly permitted by the Christian govern- 
ment of Navarre, and by the law of King Theobald! At the 
present day the Jews of Europe do not appear to practise 
polygamy. 

From this brief review it sufficiently appears that polygamy 
was both permitted to and practised by the chosen people. 


(11.) Divorce. 

The permission to divorce a wife is very clearly given by the (ὦ Law of 
Mosaic code. Our Lord at once admits the permission, and ‘he Bil of 
explains the ground of it, when He says, “Moses because of 
the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your 


wives: but from the beginning it was not so.”! The terms of 
the permission are as follows: 


Deuteronomy xxiv. 1-4. 


1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that 
she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her : 
then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give {ΐ in her hand, and send 
her out of his house. 


2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another 
man’s wife, 


3 And 77 the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, 
and giveth ἐξ in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house ; or if the latter 
husband die, which took her to be his wife ; 

4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be 
his wife, after that she is defiled ; for that ἐδ abomination before the Lord: and 


thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee jor an 
inheritance. 


The later schools of Jewish expositors were sharply divided 
as to what constituted an adequate ground of divorce. Moses 
in the passage just quoted permitted divorce if the husband 
had “found some uncleanness in” the wife; the literal meaning 
of the phrase “some uncleanness” being the “nakedness of a 
thing.” It is the same phrase which is used in Deut. xxi. 14, 
apparently to denote anything shameful or improper. The 
school of Hillel, taking the expression as vague and indeterminate, 
contended that the husband might lawfully put away his wife 





1 Kayserling, Geschichte der Juden in Spanien, i. 71. 
2S. Matthew xix. 8. 


νυν De 


The 
Mosaic 
Code 
neither 
originated 
the practice 
nor 
rendered it 
more easy. 


(b) Rights 
of the wife, 
failing 
which she 
might 
retire. 


52 HOLY MATRIMONY 


for any cause, however trivial, as, for instance, want of skill in 
cookery (“if a woman let the broth burn”). Rabbi Akiva 
even held that a man might divorce his wife if he found another 
woman more beautiful. The school of Shammai, taking a 
stricter view, explained the “nakedness of a thing” to mean 
actual adultery.2 The reference of this vexed question to our 
Lord elicited from Him no direct reply as to which school was 
the more correct exponent of the meaning of the disputed 
phrase; but in the place of this He made what was to His 
hearers the startling statement that the whole system was a 
departure from the original law of marriage. “From the 
beginning it was not so.”? Although divorce was no doubt 
permitted, it was permitted only because of the sinful “hard- 
ness” of men’s “ hearts.” 

It is clear, however, that although the Mosaic code suffered 
the practice of divorce, that code neither originated the practice, 
nor rendered it more easy. The dismissal of Hagar by Abraham, 
which is an example of divorce anterior to the Mosaic code, is 
also probably an example of the rough and ready procedure 
which in the patriarchal age would commonly characterise it. 
A glance at the terms of the Mosaic regulation of divorce 
quoted above is sufficient to shew that the mind of the law- 
giver was concerned with the regulation, and not with the 
introduction, of the practice. As in the case of the regulations 
affecting polygamy, the regulations on the subject of divorce 
are in the direction of restraint, not in that of encouragement. 
Whereas previously divorce seems to have been effected by the 
mere sending away of the woman, after the promulgation of 
the Mosaic law the woman had to receive a formal document 
known as the bill of divorcement. 

The woman had no power to give her husband a bill of 
divorcement; but a servant wife who had been bought with 
money might require the three conjugal rights—food, raiment, 
and duty of marriage—and if any of these three were withheld, 
might leave her husband without any payment being required 
of her. 





1 Mishna, Gittin, ix. 10. aT index LU, 
3S. Matthew xix. 8. ΕΓ ἢ <xi.el 4° 


a a 


| 





OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 53 


Exodus xxi. 10, 11: 


10 If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of 
marriage, shall he not diminish. 

11 And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without 
money. . 

After so leaving her husband the woman was free to marry 
again, and the leaving was therefore in fact a divorce. It was 
sometimes assumed, at least in later times, that a wife of 
superior position was not more restricted in analogous cir- 
cumstances, and accordingly there are some notices of the 
wife taking the initiative in cases of divorce. Our Lord 
probably adverted to this practice when He said, “And if a 
woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, 
she committeth adultery. ”? 

Notwithstanding, however, the concession of the power of ὦ Priests 

oO? ᾽ 

: eg . : forbidden 
divorce to ordinary members of the community, the comparative {5 marry 
unholiness of the practice was unmistakeably taught by the divorced 

OF 5 ὁ - δ . δ women, 

prohibition of marriage with a divorced woman in the case of 
the priests. 


Leviticus xxi. 7: 


7 They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane ; neither shall they 
take a woman put away from her husband: for he zs holy unto his God. 


The same sense of the comparative unholiness of divorce (a God's 


even when permitted is found in the utterances of Malachi, eee 


which doubtless found a more or less pronounced echo in the away. 
consciences of the people. ‘The Lord, the Gop of Israel, saith 
that he hateth putting away.” The context may again be 


quoted. 

Malachi 11. 14-16: 

14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lorp hath been witness between 
thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously : 
yet 7s she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 

15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And 
wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your 
spirit, and Jet none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. 

16 For the Lorn, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away : for 
one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lorp of hosts: therefore take 
heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. 





1 Josephus, Antiquities, xv. vii. 10 (Case of Salome). 2S, Markex..12, 


(iii) The 
Levirate 
Custom. 


Incestuous 
connexions 
are con- 
demned by 
the Code. 


54 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Our Lord’s teaching removed all doubt that might exist 
as to the rightfulness of this depreciatory tone. Divorce had 
found no place in the original institution, and was conceded 
simply for the hardness of men’s hearts.? | 

It is unnecessary to prove that divorce was in common 
practice among the Jewish people. The reply of the disciples 
to our Lord’s teaching on the subject may sufficiently mdicate 
the current tone of the day: “If the case of a man be so with 
his wife, it 15 not good to marry.” 

Divorce then was both permitted to and practised by the 
Jewish people. 


(iii.) Zhe Levirate Custom. 


The Mosaic code is exceedingly strict. in the matter of 
incestuous unions. Both consanguinity, or blood relationship, 
and affinity, or relationship through marriage, constitute 
hindrances to marriage within certain specified lmits.? The 
details of the law will be examined in a later chapter; but 
it is clear prima facie that the prohibitions of incestuous 
connexions are direct and peremptory. Although in the 
Mosaic code Gop did not prohibit by direct legislation either 
polygamy or divorce to a nation which, while they were His 
chosen people, were yet estranged from holiness by the Fall; 
yet in their fallen condition He did hold them bound to the 
avoiding of all shameful “uncovering of nakedness.” And 
not only did He hold His own chosen people to be so bound, 
but even in the case of the outside heathen He did not shew 
Himself prepared to relax His requirements. “Ye shall not 
walk in the manners of the nation which 1 cast out before 
you; for they committed all these things, and therefore I 
abhorred them”* is a warning which follows on a list of 
prohibited practices, of which incestuous unions form a con- 
siderable proportion. If the suggestion already thrown out in 
this chapter be correct, that the shame and therefore the sin of 
unions of near kin were the direct product of the Fall, and 
that such unions would have had no sinfulness in the unfallen 





LSS 5} oxi sens. 25, Mathixixze 0; 
3 Leviticus, chapters xviii. xx. 4 Leviticus xx, 23, 





OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 55 


state, we seem to have a glimpse of the laws which underlie 
the Divine action, and to understand that these sins may be 
made in a special way the objects of the curse which followed 
the Fall. That these sins are held to be signally accursed is 
very plain. After an enumeration in the eighteenth chapter 
of Leviticus of what are chiefly incestuous offences, we have 
this warning : 

Leviticus xvii. 24-30: 

24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the 
nations are defiled which I cast out before you: 

25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, 
and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. 

26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not 
commit any of these abominations: nether any of your own nation, nor any 
stranger that sojourneth among you ; 

27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were 
before you, and the land is defiled ;) 


28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the 
nations that were before you. 

29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls 
that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. 

30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of 
these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and thot ye defile 
not yourselves therein: I am the Lorp your God, 


Thus of three customs which the chosen people found 
“committed before” them, two, polygamy and divorce, although 
at variance with the original institution of marriage, were in a 
measure suffered, presumably as less “abominable”; while the 
third custom of the unholy alliance of near kin was to be at 
once ended, under penalty, in the case of the individual, of the 
person being cut off from among his people, and in the case of 
a people, of the land vomiting out its inhabitants. ° 

Amone the offences thus strictly denounced is the offence among 
of marrying a brother's wife. “Thou shalt not uncover the ®™ 


marriage 
nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness.” with a 
The reason given explains why the relationship, which is not wife. 
one of consanguinity, but only of affinity, should nevertheless 

bar marriage. And in the case of this particular union, it 


must not only be held to have its share in the solemn warning 


5 Leviticus xvill. 25; xx. 22, 


The 
exception. 


56 HOLY MATRIMONY 


against incestuous sins generally, which has already been 
quoted, but the particular curse of childlessness is, under 
ordinary circumstances, to attach to it. 


Lenticus xx. 21: 
And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it 7s an unclean thing: he hath 
uncovered his brother’s nakedness ; they shall be childless. 


Now it appears plain from the character both of this special 
denunciation, and of the general statements regarding the 
punishment of the Canaanites, that sins of too close union were 
regarded as sinful, not because of any positive or ceremonial 
regulations, but by reason of their inherent impurity in the 
fallen state. Yet notwithstanding this inherent impurity, we 
now come fo the remarkable exception which is commonly 
known as the Levirate law (from the Latin Jevir, brother-in- 
law). 


Deuteronomy xxv. 5-10: 


5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the 
wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother 
shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of 
an husband’s brother unto her. 

6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the 
name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. 

7 And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s 
wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth 
to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my 
husband’s brother, 

8 Then the elders of his city shall 6811 him, and speak unto him: and 7 he 
stand 10 it, and say, I like not to take her ; 

9 Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, 
and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and 
say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. 

10 And his name shall be ealled in Israel, The house of him that hath his 
shoe loosed, 


By this Levirate law the union of a man with his brother’s 
widow, which, as we have seen, is in ordinary circumstances 
denounced as impurity, and threatened with the punishment of 
childlessness, is, in the case when the brother has died without 
a son having been born to him, not only permitted, but actually 
enjoined. In such case the next surviving brother is to take 
the widow and to raise up seed to the brother which is dead. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 57 


The union is not indeed made altogether compulsory, but it 
is nevertheless pressed upon the surviving brother as expedient, 
and as indeed so fairly due from him that non-compliance 
should justly subject him to penalty. The woman is to 
complain to the elders that “he hath not performed the duty 
of an husband’s brother unto me.” Thereupon the brother is 
subjected to a process involving public disrepute. 

An important question arises in connexion with the Levirate 
law. Is Moses, under Gop’s guidance, making here a new law 
which, for the sake of the apportionment of inheritance, dis- 
regards the inherent sinfulness of an incestuous alliance? or 
is the Levirate law the permission of an existing custom, as 
in the case of the permissions accorded to polygamy and 
divorce? If the latter, then we can understand that the 
marriage of a man with his brother’s widow under the specified 
circumstances is retained, although not devoid of a sinful 
character, just in the same way as polygamy and divorce were 
retained, although not devoid of a sinful character. In the 
᾿ state of sin wherein men lived when alienated from Gop by the 
Fall, and not as yet redeemed by Him, it might please Gop to 
suffer all these things for the hardness of men’s hearts, lest 
worse should come. 

What, then, are the facts? We find that beyond all doubt 
the custom was an old one, and not only so but that the Mosaic 
regulations, as in the cases of polygamy and divorce, are 
distinctly in the direction of restraining the power of the 
objectionable custom. In the case of Tamar, certainly some 
hundreds of years before the code of Deuteronomy, we find the 
practice in full force.1 Tamar was the wife of Er, the first- 
born son of Judah. By the Levirate custom it fell to Onan, as 
the next brother, to raise up seed to Er. This he declined to 
do, because he “ knew that the seed should not be his.” After 
the death of Onan, which was brought about by a Divine 
judgment, Judah told Tamar to remain a widow at her father’s 
house till Shelah, his next son, should be grown. Tamar did 
so, but finding that Shelah was not then given to her she 
procured an union with Judah himself by means of an artifice, 





1 Genesis XxXxViii. 


Is the 
Levirate 
Law a new 
law, or the 
permission 
of an 
existing 
custom ἢ 


The 

custom was 
ancient, 
and the 
Mosaic 
Law is 

in the 
direction of 
restraint, 


The 
Levirate 
custom 
among 
other 
peoples. 


58 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and so conceived. On the circumstances becoming known, 
Judah’s judgment was, “She bath been more righteous than I; 
because that I gave her not to Shelah my son.” But it is added 
that “he knew her again no more.”! From this narrative it is 
clear that the Levirate custom was of ancient origin, certainly 
preceding the Egyptian sojourn, and it farther appears that it 
was of a more binding character at the earlier period than 
under the Mosaic law. That law permitted the brother or next 
of kin to decline the union in the presence of judges if he were 
prepared to go through the ordeal of (1) being spat upon 
and (2) having his shoes loosed by the widow, and also (3) 
of being named in Israel the “unshod.”? Grave as the resulting 
disgrace would be, it was still not so grave but that a person 
who was strongly indisposed to effect the union would dare to 
encounter it. In the case of Tamar it does not appear to be 
admitted that Onan had any right at all to decline the union; 
and it seems to be imphed that when Onan was dead Judah 
was bound to raise up seed to Er, if not by Shelah, then in his 


own person. Here we have a distinct-advance at the later ° 


period. The Levirate usage is indeed retained, but coupled 
with it is a power of dispensation which would in time go far to 
render the usage a dead letter. 

For the proper understanding of the Levirate law it is 
necessary to notice that the custom prevailed widely outside 
the Hebrew limits. In the laws of Manu, the great legal code 
of ancient India, we find the custom at much the same stage as 
we have it in the Mosaic code. The obligation of taking the 
widow of a deceased brother is laid down; but, as in the 
Biblical cases, only where the deceased has left no son. The 
raising up of issue to the deceased brother is made the object 
of the union; and the rule of inheritance is laid down as 
follows: “Should a younger brother have begotten a son on the 
wife of his deceased elder brother, the division (of the estate) 
must then be made equally between that son, who represents 
the deceased, and his natural father: thus is the law settled.’ 
When the object 1s once attained, the union is to cease. “The 





1 Gen. xxxviii/ 26. 2 Deut. xxy.-9, 10. 3 Manu, ix. $120. 





ee or 


Ὁ 


—— ee ΨΥ Ψ Ψ συ  ψ  , ὍΝ 


ὙὙΥ Tt a i AoE les πα ee ae 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 59 


first object of the appointment being obtained, according to 
law, both the brother and the widow must live together lke a 
father and daughter by affinity.”} 

The custom of the Levirate is said to exist in the present 
day amongst the South African tribes,? amongst the Arabians,° 
amongst the Druses,t and amongst the tribes of the Caucasus.’ 

Mr. McLennan in an investigation of much interest finds the 
origin of the Levirate law in the practice of polyandry, which 
appears to have been very widely spread, and reference to which 
has already been made.® In the more usual and lmited form 
of polyandry, the brothers of a family have one wife among 
them. The description of the people of Ladak, given in 
Moorcroft and Trebeck’s Travels, is of interest in this connection. 


“In Ladak, when an eldest son marries, the property of his father 
(more properly the family estate) descends to him, and he is charged 
with the maintenance of his parents. ‘The parents may continue to 
live with him, if he and his wife please; if not, a separate dwelling 
is provided for them. A younger son is usually made a Lama. 
Should there be more brothers, and they agree to the arrangement, 
the juniors become inferior husbands to the wife; all the children, 
however, are considered as belonging to the head of the family. The 
younger brothers have no authority ; they wait upon the elder as his 
servants, and can be turned out of doors at his pleasure, without it 
being incumbent upon him to provide for them. On the death of the 
eldest brother his property, authority, and widow devolve upon his neat 
brother.” 

Thus, in Ladak, while the normal type appears to be a 
polyandrous union of one woman with more than one brother 
at the same time, the brothers need not fall in with the arrange- 
ment; but if the elder brother die, then the younger must 





1 Manu, ix. § 62. 2 Colenso, Pentateuch, § 754. 

3 Burekhardt, Notes, i. 112. 4 Volney, Travels, ii. 80. 

5 Haxthausen, Z'ranscaucasia, p. 403. See also Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
instances of succession to a brother’s wife, quoted on p. 61. 

6 McLennan, J. F., Primitive Marriage. In the new edition of this work, 
which is included in Studies in Ancient History (1886), the statements of the 
first edition are somewhat modified, pp. 109, sgg. See also Mr. Mc Lennan’s 
article, “The Levirate and Polyandry,” in the Lortnightly Review of 1877, 
p. 694. 

7 Moorcroft and Trebeck’s Travels, 1841, vol. i. Ὁ. 320, quoted by McLennan, 


Possibly a 
revival of 
Polyandry. 


60 HOLY MATRIMONY 


sueceed to the widow as the condition of succeeding to the 
property. Here we have the transition from limited polyandry, 
or the contemporary union of brothers with one wife, to the 
Levirate custom; but the custom as here found is not with a 
view to raising up a son as heir to the elder brother's estate, 
which passes over of right to the younger brother, if he take 
the widow, nor is the union discontinued on the birth of such 
a son. The Ladak practice appears therefore to suggest that 
the Levirate custom had its origin in the practice of polyandry, 
and that the sense of obligation to raise up seed to the deceased 
brother was not the original ground of the usage, but a later 
development from it. 

It is, however, not to be denied that the prominent place 
ascribed alike in the Mosaic code and in the narrative of Tamar, 
to the raising up of seed to the deceased as supplying the ground 
of the Levirate custom, is an argument of much force against 
the theory that the custom is a survival of polyandry. Under 
a polyandrous system the deceased brother’s son would not 
ordinarily have inherited in any case, inheritance in polyandrous 
communities being usually from uterine brother to uterine 
brother, or else altogether in the females. It may nevertheless 
be the case that the Levirate custom is rightly derived from 
polyandrous usages, if there are indications in actual history 
that the newer purpose of raising up an heir was engrafted on 
an older practice of the polyandry of one woman with all the 
brothers of a family. The laws of Manu appear to afford such 
an indication. Those laws assign half the inheritance to the 
brother who marries the widow, and the other half to the son 
whom he raises up to the deceased. In this, the Indian example, 
we have sufficient evidence that polyandry did at one time 
prevail, and the Levirate law of the code of Manu may therefore 
be said to be not merely .a possible case of the transition 
suggested, but a demonstrated case of such transition.) The 





1 Very noticeable in the code of Manu is the perplexity of the compiler on 
the subject of the Levirate custom. By the legal theory of his day there is no 
doubt that “the first object of the appointment (§ 61, § 62)” is the raising up of 
a son to the deceased brother; but for all that he stigmatises the practice as “ fit 
only for cattle (ὁ 66),” and as inadmissible to the twice-born classes (ᾧ 64). 


--. -ἡὦὁ); 


; 





OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 61 


strongly antagonistic feeling evinced by Onan to the raising up 
of seed to his brother may be an indication of the same 
transitional stage; it is not the widow, but the heir and 
supplanter who is the object of aversion. There is indeed no 
evidence of polyandry in the chosen line itself; but as the 
Levirate custom was in all probability adopted from the 
neighbouring nations or tribes, so too would be the current 
feeling towards the custom. . 
Mr. Herbert Spencer declines to accept the view that the ora form 


: : : Ἂν ἐν, . sa of the 
Levirate custom is a survival of polyandry. His opinions may ; portance 
be quoted : of chattels, 


“It seems to me, however, quite possible to find in the customs of 
primitive peoples another explanation which is much more natural. 
Under early social systems wives, being regarded as property, are 
inherited in the same way as other property. When we read that 
among the ‘Bellabillahs (Haidahs) the widow of the deceased is 
transferred to his brother’s harem’; that among the Zulus ‘the 
widow is transferred to the brother of her deceased husband on his 
death’; that among the Damaras, ‘when a chief dies, his surviving 
wives are transferred to his brother, or to zs nearest relation’; the 
suspicion is raised that this taking possession of a brother’s wife has 
nothing to do with polyandry. This suspicion is confirmed on finding 
that in Congo, ‘if there be three brothers and one of them die, the 
two survivors share his concubines between them’; on finding that 
in Samoa ‘the brother of a deceased husband considered himself 
entitled to have his brother’s wife’; on finding that in ancient 
Vera Paz ‘the brother of the deceased at once took her (the widow) 
as his wife, even if he was married; and if he did not, another 
relation had a right to her.’ These facts imply that where wives are 
classed simply as objects of value (usually purchased), the succession 
to them by purchase goes along with succession in general. And if 
there needs further evidence, I may cite this, that in sundry places a 
father’s wives are inherited. Thomson says that among the New 
Zealanders ‘fathers’ wives descended to their sons, and dead brothers’ 
wives to their surviving brothers.’ Of the Mishmis Rowlett states 
that ‘when a man dies or becomes old, it is the custom of these 
people for the wives to be distributed amongst his sons, who take 
them to wife.’ Torquemada mentions provinces of Mexico in which’ - 
the sons inherited those wives of their father who had not yet borne 


Conclu- 
sions as to 
the 
Levirate 
Law of the 
Mosaic 
Code. 


The 
Levirate 
custom, 
though not 
devoid of 
a sinful 
character, 
suffered 
for the 
hardness 
of men’s 
hearts. 


62 HOLY MATRIMONY 


sons to the deceased. In his Abeokuta Barton states that among the 
Egbas ‘the son inherits all the father’s wives except his own mother.’ 
We learn from Bosman that on the Slave Coast, ‘upon the father’s 
death, the eldest son inherits all his goods and cattle, his wives . 
except his own mother. And in Dahomy the king’s eldest son 
‘inherits the deceased’s wives, and makes them his own, excepting, 
of course, the woman that bare him.’ 

“We cannot then admit that the practice of marrying a dead 
brother’s widow implies pre-existence of polyandry, and cannot 
accept the inference that out of decaying polyandry higher forms 
of marriage grew up.”! 


It is not material to our present enquiry to decide whether 
the Levirate custom is commonly a survival of polyandry or a 
form of the inheritance of chattels. Nor need it be asserted 
that the custom has its roots in either of these. What appears 
to be altogether clear is, that the practice has many remarkable 
affinities In communities where a very low type of sexual 
relation prevails. 

teturning now to the consideration of the Levirate custom 
as practised by the chosen people, we are in a position to see 
(1) that the custom involves a union of near kin, which under 
other circumstances is asserted to be inherently sinful; (2) that 
it was not originated by the Mosaic legislation, but was in force 
centuries before that legislation ; (3) that it was not confined to 
the chosen line, but was practised in various other countries, 
and under circumstances pointing to great moral laxity; (4) 
that in the chosen line it appears at no time to have been 
permitted, except with special reference to the continuance of 
families; and (5) that its compulsory character is taken away 
by the Mosaic code, which simply visits non-comphance with 
the penalty of a marked discredit. It is accordingly reasonable 
to infer that the Levirate custom, hke polygamy and divorce, 
was a custom not devoid of a sinful character, but suffered for 
awhile in a fallen race for the hardness of men’s hearts, and 
that the Mosaic legislation with regard to it was in the 
direction of restraint, and not in that of encouragement. 





1 Ἢ, Spencer, Principles of Sociology (1885), $302. 





OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 63 


It thus appears that Almighty Gop suffered among the summary 
chosen people during the time of the estrangement of the race °°" 


cessions 
the practices of (1) polygamy, (2) divorce, and (3) the Levirate to the 


custom. Our Lord expressly states that one of these practices, Bas 
that of divorce, was in direct contravention of the Divine 
institution, but that it was suffered because of the hardness of 
men’s hearts. The same explanation appears to be entirely 
applicable to the other two practices, those of polygamy and 
the Levirate custom. When all were in the state of sin, 
waiting for a redemption not yet accorded, such practices were 
relatively less important; and not till the state of grace had 
been restored by the atonement, and by the coming of the 
Holy Ghost to dwell in the persons of the faithful, does it 
appear that the original conditions of the Divine institution 
were fully and invariably insisted upon. 


B. MARRIAGE AMONG NON-CHRISTIAN PEOPLES 
OTHER THAN THE CHOSEN RACE. 


Marriage in the fallen state and outside Christianity has to marriage 
be reckoned with not only as it existed among the Israelites, outside the 
but as it was found in the whole human race prior to the People. 
coming of the Holy Ghost at the Great Pentecost, and also as 
it has been found since the Great Pentecost in all persons other 
than Christians. From the Christian standpoint it is clearly 
most improbable that marriage would as a rule be better 
euarded in the race at large than it was in the case of the 
Chosen People. We have already had occasion to glance at 
the records of terrible degradation, altogether outside the limits 
of Divine permission, which have stained the histories of certain 
peoples.t With respect to the practices of divorce and polygamy, 
which were permitted to the Israelites, it is matter of so great 
notoriety that they have been of usual occurrence among non- 
Christian peoples that it seems superfluous to make any 
attempt at enumeration. It will hardly be disputed that it is 
the rule among non-Christian peoples to permit either (1) 
divorce, or (2) polygamy, or (3) both. If there be any non- 





1 See pp. 32-37. 


64 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Christian communities which at once exclude polygamy and 
divorce they are certainly the exceptions. The task of 
enumerating the communities which have suffered either 
divorce or polygamy, or both, may then be declined. It is 
perhaps of greater importance to ask whether, in any of the 
non-Christian peoples with whom we are brought into con- 
nection, the conditions of the marriage contract seem to be the 
same as those of the Christian marriage contract. Even if the 
conditions of the contract are in any given case of the same 
high character, this treatise will take the ground that the status 
following the contract cannot be the same, inasmuch as in the 
case of the Christian it is the presence of the indwelling Spirit 
which gives to the union its character of holiness, while in the 
ease of the non-Christian that presence is not supplied. [Ὁ 
cannot, however, be denied that 1t is a much more serious thing 
to sever a tie which was entered into on the distinct under- 
standing that it was to be at once exclusive and indissoluble, 
than it 1s to sever another tie which never at any time laid 
claim to either character. It is therefore always of importance 
to be acquainted with the terms of the marriage contract in 
the case of any non-Christian people with whom we are brought 
in connection. 

It would no doubt be a mistake to infer that even if a 
community can be shewn to exist which excludes both polygamy 
and divorce from the terms of its marriage contracts, such a 
community will of necessity be purer than another in which 
those practices are suffered. If the mere imposition of a law 
or requirement of a custom could have secured the true purity 
of marriage, GoD would hardly have suffered declensions from 
the highest standard in the case of the chosen people. It may 
‘be well doubted whether the absence of polygamy in the 
Roman Empire resulted in a higher condition of moral life 
than that which we find among the Jews. And it was pleaded 
with great force in the French Senate, in connection with the 
Divorce Act passed a few years ago, that the high marriage law 
of the Christian Church, when imposed upon persons who 
repudiated the Christian yoke, led not to a higher morality, but 
to a more flagrant immorality. At the same time it must 


Or 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL ° 6 


remain true that when a question arises as to the remarriage of 
a convert whose non-Christian marriage was solemnized under 
the express conditions of indissolubility and exclusive faithful- 
ness, there are difficulties to meet which could hardly detain 
us where the earlier marriage never claimed to be either 
exclusive or indissoluble. 

The great Indian Empire offers to an English theologian an 
obvious field for enquiries as to non-Christian conditions of 
marriage. What are the conditions of the marriage contract 
in India, and more particularly among (1) the Hindus and 
(2) the Musulmans, who together constitute the vast majority 
of the population ? 

As regards India generally, it is necessary to clearly under- 
stand that there is no one marriage law either for the whole 
empire or for any tract of territory within it. The marriage 
laws of India are personal, and the State recognises as fully 
valid any established system of marriage law, whether written 
or customary, which is found in actual force in any religion, 
race, or tribe. It is thus that the British authority finds 
itself giving full support even to such systems as_ the 
temporary marriage of the Shia Musulmaus, and the com- 


pulsory polyandry of the Nairs. 


1. Hinduism. 


The first point to be noticed as regards the marriage 
regulations of the Hindus is, that while the Hindu law of 
marriage, taken as a whole, is different at once from the 
Musulman and from the Christian law, there is also found 
a very great diversity of marriage laws among the Hindus 
themselves. Some of the tribes on the outer fringe of 
Hinduism are in the habit of forming alliances which are 
simply revolting; while the higher castes of Hindus are often 
found, at least in practice, to be governed by a very lofty 
conception of marriage. On this subject Sir William Hunter 
may be quoted: 


“The Hindu custom now forbids marriage between (1) persons 
of the same gotra or kindred and (2) persons of different castes. 
But this precise double rule has been arrived at only after many 

F 


The 
Indian 
Empire. 


Hinduism. 


66 HOLY MATRIMONY 


intermediate experiments in endogamous and exogamous tribal life. 
The transitions are typified by the polyandry of Draupadi in the 
Mahabharata, and by the multitudinous caste customs relating to 
marriage inheritance and the family tie which survive to this day. 
Such survivals constitute an important branch of law, in fact, the 
‘common law’ of India, and furnish one of the chief difficulties in 
the way of Anglo-Indian codification. Thus, to take a single point, 
the rules regarding marriage exhibit every phase, from the com- 
pulsory polyandry of the Nairs, the permissive polyandry of the Jats, 
and the condonement of adultery with a husband's brother or 
kinsman among the Karakat Vellalars of Madura, to the law of 
Levirate among the Ahtrs and the Nuniyas, the legal re-marriage 
of widows among the low caste Hindus, and the stringent provisions 
against such re-marriages among the higher ones. Among the Koils, 
although polyandry is forgotten, the right of disposing of a girl in 
marriage still belongs, in certain cases, to the maternal uncle—a 
relic of the polyandric system of succession through females. This 
tribe also preserves the form of marriage by capture.”? 


The lower forms of marriage law need not detain us in this 
enquiry. It is certainly not in unions so framed that we can 
discern the features of a marriage which Christians should 
hold to be necessarily binding. It is more important to ask 
whether the marriage contracts of the great body of the 
Hindus, and more particularly of the higher castes, ever rise 
to the requirements of the Christian contract. In other words, 
Are Hindu marriages found which forbid both polygamy and 
divorce ? 


(1.) Polygamy. 


On the subject of polygamy may be quoted the teaching of 
Dr. Gooroodas Banerjee, in his valuable work, Zhe Hindu Law 
of Marriage and Stridhan, a work, it may be added, which is 
of acknowledged authority with Indian lawyers. He says :? 


“The marriage of a person having a wife living is prohibited in 
Christian countries; but Hindu law permits polygamy, though it 
does not approve the practice. It is true that polygamy is expressly 





1 Sir W. Hunter, The Indian Empire (1886), p. 195. 
* Banerjee, The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhan, 1879, pp. 42-44. 





OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 67 


allowed only under certain circumstances;! but considering the 
nature of some of these circumstances, and considering that a wife 
who speaks unkindly is allowed to be superseded without delay, it 
would follow that polygamy is not illegal in any case. Macnaghten,? 
Strange,’ and Shamacharan* consider polygamy prohibited except 
for allowable reasons, and Pandit Iswarchandra Vidyasegar has cited 
the following passage of Manu :5 


“Ὁ Wor the first marriage of the twice-born classes a woman of the 
same class is recommended ; but for such as are impelled by inclina- 
tion to marry again, women in the direct order of the classes are to 
be preferred. A Sudra woman only must be the wife of a Sudra ; 
she and a Vaisya of a Vaisya; they two and a Cshatriya of a 
Cshatriya; those three and a Brahmani of a Brahman :’ 


‘“‘as authority for the position that one cannot have more than 
one wife of equal caste with him at the same time, except for certain 
allowable reasons; in other words, that polygamy such as now 
prevails is prohibited by the sastras. But his interpretation of the 
above text has called forth much hostile criticism and an elaborate 
rejoinder. It is not my object here to take part in the learned 
controversy as to what is the correct exposition of the above 
passage ; but I cannot help observing that the text quoted above 
refers, not to the number of wives that a man may have, but to the 
castes in which he can marry ;° and I think I can safely affirm that 
the prohibition against polygamy, such as is inferred from this and 
other texts, is merely directory, and not imperative. . The practice 
has always prevailed among the Hindus, and it reached its climax in 
Bengal as an incident of Kalinism. This last-named institution has 
exercised its pernicious influence upon marriage for several centuries ; 
but happily it is now fast becoming obsolete, and will soon become 
purely matter of history.’” 


It appears then that “polygamy is not illegal in any case,” 
and that accordingly monogamy cannot be held to be required 
by the Hindu marriage contract. 








('] Manu, ix. 77, 80, 81. [ Principles of Hindu Law, 58. 
[5] Hindu Law, vol. i. 52. [*] Vyavastha Darpana, 672. 
f°)... 12; 13, [6] See Dyabhaga, ch. ix. 2-6. 


[7] For an account of Kulinism see Vidyasagar’s first Z'ract on Polygamy, 
pp. 15-28. 


68 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(11.) Dovorce. 

The position of Hinduism on the subject of divorce appears 
at first sight to be of the most unyielding character. Speaking 
generally, it may be asserted that death itself does not remove 
the tie which binds a woman to her husband, and that divorce 
is therefore out of the question. While, however, Hindu law 
knows nothing under ordinary circumstances of a divorce which 
would enable the wife to put away her husband, the practical 
putting away of a wife by a husband is a matter of every-day 
occurrence. The wife is simply superseded under the laws 
which admit polygamy. 

On this subject Professor Banerjee may again be quoted :! 


‘The provisions of the Hindu Law on this important subject are 
not altogether satisfactory. By that law marriage is regarded as 
a sacrament and an indissoluble union; and accordingly Manu 
declares,? ‘ Neither by sale nor desertion can a wife be released from 
her husband’; and in another place he says, ‘Let mutual fidelity 
continue till death. ‘his, in few words, may be considered the 
supreme law between husband and wife.’* So far our law deals 
equally with both parties; but it goes further. While, as you have 
seen, it allows a man to have a plurality of wives, it forbids the 
second marriage of a woman even after the death of her first husband. 
It is true that some authorities permit a woman to take a second 
husband under certain circumstances. Thus Parasara, in his cele- 
brated text, declares: ‘If the husband be missing or dead, or retired 
from the world, or impotent, or degraded, in these five calamities a 
woman may take another husband.’* And Narada and Devala lay 
down rules to the same effect. But these rules, either like the 
practice of raising up issue by a kinsman on an appointed wife, 
relate to a primitive stage of Hindu society, in which rapid multipli- 
cation of the race was deemed an important object, or they may 
merely shew the existence of some difference of opinion among the 
Hindu sages on a point on which absolute unanimity of opinion can 
hardly be expected. The prevailing sentiment of Hindu society has 
for a long time been repugnant to the second marriage of a woman. 





1 Banerjee, The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhan, 1879, pp. 182-184. 
[3] Manu, ix. 46. [pel bide x 101 
[1 Ch. iv. quoted in Vidyasagara’s Marriage of Hindu Widows, p. 7. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL 69 


Manu says: ‘The holy nuptial texts are applied solely to virgins,! 
and nowhere on earth to girls who have lost their virginity, since 
those women are in general excluded from legal ceremonies.’2 And 
in another place he declares: ‘ Nor is a second husband allowed in 
any part of this code to a virtuous woman.’? Indeed a twice-married 
woman (punarbhu) and a disloyal wife (sewazrind) are considered as 
belonging to classes not very far removed from one another. Thus 
Narada says:+ ‘Others are women who had a different husband 
before (parapurvd) ; they are declared to be of seven kinds, in order 
as enumerated. Among these the twice-married woman is of three 
descriptions, and the disloyal wife of four sorts.’ Their husbands 
are, according to Manu, ‘to be avoided with great care’;° their 
children, says Harita, ‘should not be admitted to social meetings’ ;® 
neither they nor their daughters are to be taken in marriage ;7 and 
their sons, called the pauwnarbhava, though formerly allowed to 
inherit in default of legitimate sons, as coming under one of the 
twelve descriptions of sons,* are in the present age declared unfit to 
have any share in the heritage. ° 

“Thus while the practice of polygamy renders divorce unnecessary 
for the husband, the prohibition of the second marriage of a woman 
renders divorce useless for the wife. Accordingly, as a rule divorce 
in the ordinary sense of the word has been unknown in Hindu 
society. 

“Sir Τὶ Strange! says that the right of divorce in the Hindu law 
is marital only; but this is not correct. If by divorce is meant 
dissolution of marriage, it is not obtainable even by the husband, for, 
according to Manu," a wife can never be released from her husband ; 
and if by the right of divorce is meant the right of either spouse to 
desert or to live separate from the other, such right, as you will 
presently see, belongs, under certain circumstances, to the wife as 
well as to the husband. 

“But though not allowed by the general Hindu law, divorce and 
remarriage of a divorced wife are in some cases permitted by custom.!2 





[] The word in the original is Kanya, which has been explained to mean ‘‘a 


girl not deflowered, nor given in marriage.” See Colebrooke’s Digest, bk. iv. 
168, commentary. [3] Manu, vill. 226. [ey EL ρον O72. 
[4] Narada, xii. 46-54. [5] Manu, iii. 166. [6] Colebrooke’s Digest, bk. iv. 162. 
[7] Colebrooke’s Digest, bk. iv. 165. [5] Manu, ix. 158-160. 
[9] General note to Manu, vi. 8; Dattaka Mimansa, i. 64. 
[}°] 1 Strange, 52. [1] Manu, ix. 46. 


[13] See Kudomee Dossee v. Joteeram Kolita, Indian Law Reports, 3 Cale, 305, 


Islam. 


70 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Such custom, however, prevails only among the inferior classes, 
especially in the Bombay Presidency ;! and disputes concerning this 
subject are generally settled by punchayats, or caste assemblies. But 
it has been held that the Courts are not bound to recognise the 
authority of the caste to declare a marriage void, or to give permis- 
sion to a woman to remarry.”” 


We conclude, therefore, that the marriage contract of the 
Hindus is never of the same stringent character as the Christian 
marriage contract, inasmuch as it does not forbid polygamy, 
and therefore also in practice, as far as the man is concerned, 
concedes divorce. It may, however, be admitted that, putting 
aside legal possibility, there is a considerable population of 
Hindus to whom polygamy and divorce are alike foreign, and 
that among these people there is in fact attained a high type of 
conjugal consent, which is not very readily distinguishable 
from the consent of Christian marriage. Nowhere is the 
recommendation of 5. Paul to married converts of greater 
force than in the case of such a community. “If any brother 
hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with 
him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath 
an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell 
with her, let her not leave.him.”? It will, however, be main- 
tained in the chapter on the remarriage of converts that even 
in such a community the status of marriage is something 
altogether different from the status of Christian marriage, and 
that, notwithstanding the character of the original consent, 
these marriages cannot claim to be regarded by Christians as 
essentially indissoluble. 


2° Jslam. 


Proceeding now to the consideration of the conditions of 
Muhanmedan marriage, it is not disputed that under no 
Muhammedan system is marriage regarded as excluding either 
polygamy or divorce. In India two principal Muhammedan 
systems of law are commonly adnutted, viz., (1) the Sunni 
Code, and (2) the Imamiyah or Shia Code. 





1 1 Strange, 52. ? Reg. v. Sambhu Raghu, Jndian Law Reports, 1 Bom. 352. 
31 Cor. vii. 13. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL ya! 


(1) Zhe Sunne Code is the system in force among the Sunni 
or orthodox Mussulmans. : 

(a) Polygamy. As regards polygamy, Neil Baillie’s Digest of 
Moohummudan Law (Hanifeea) summarises as follows : 

“ΤῸ is not lawful for any man to have more than four wives at the 
same time. And it is not lawful for a slave to marry more than two. 
... It is lawful for a free man to keep and cohabit with as many 
female slaves as he pleases; but it is not permitted to a slave to keep 
and cohabit with any, even with the permission of his master, A 
free man may marry four women, whether they be slave or free. 
And a slave may marry two women, whether they be slave or free.”! 


(0) Dworce. Two forms of divorce are recognised; the Sunni, 
or that which is agreeable to the Sunnat or traditions, and the 
Badai, or that which is new and irregular. By the Sunni form 
the husband pronounces the formula of repudiation three times, 
observing certain prescribed intervals between each pronounce- 
ment.? By the Badai form the repudiation is pronounced three 
times without the observance of the proper intervals, the three 
repudiations being occasionally thus made at one and the same 
time? By either the Sunni or the Badai form divorce is validly 
effected. “Repudiation by any husband who is sane and adult 
is effective, whether he be free or a slave, willing, or acting 
under compulsion ; and even though it were uttered in sport or 
jest, or by a mere ship of the tongue instead of another word.”4 

-The husband is not required to give any reason for his action. 


(11.) Zhe Imamiyah or Shia Code is the system of law in force 
among the Shia Musulmans. 

(a) Temporary marriages. The most remarkable feature of 
the Shia code of marriage is its permission of temporary 
marriages. As regards the duration of these marriages Baillie 
writes as follows: 

“The extent of the period is left entirely to the parties, who may 
prolong or shorten it to a year, a month, or a day; only some limit 
must be distinctly specified, so as to guard the period from any 
extension or diminution. Even if the time were fixed at part of a 





1 Baillie, Neil B. E., A Digest of Mochummudan Law, i. containing the 
Doctrines of the Hanifeea Code of Jurisprudence, 2nd edition, 1875, pp. 30, 31. 
J ibid. 1; Ὁ: 206: ® Tou. .p. 207. 4 Ibid. 1. p. 208. 


ie HOLY MATRIMONY 


day, the contract would be lawful, provided that its limit is distinctly 


ascertained, as, for example, by the declining or setting of the sun.”? 


This remarkable perversion of the institution of marriage 
affects the Shia practice as regards both polygamy and divorce. 

(b) Polygamy. 

‘When a free man has filled up the number of four wives by 
permanent contract, any in excess of that number is prohibited to 
him; and it is not lawful for him to have more than two slaves by 
contract out of the four. When a slave has filled up the number of 
four wives who are slaves, or two who are free women, or three, one 
of whom is free and the others are slaves, any in excess of these is 
prohibited to him. But each of the parties, that is, either the free 
man or the slave, may marry by temporary contracts as many as he 
pleases. So also he may retain them by virtue of bondage or right 
of property.”? 


(c) Divorce. The Shia law of divorcee is much the same as 
that of the Sunnis. Divorce is not, however, applicable to 
wives married by temporary contract. “There can be no 
repudiation of a legalised slave, or of a woman enjoyed under 
a moota or temporary contract, even though she be free.”? 

It thus appears that under neither of the Musulman codes 
does the most solemn marriage preclude either polygamy or 
divorce; and there is this great difference between Musulmans 
and Hindus, that whereas a large number of Hindus may be 
said to contract marriage without a thought of the possibility 
of either polygamy or divorce, it would probably be true to say 
that no Musulman or Musulmani, whether Sunni or Shia, ever 
contracts a marriage without the full knowledge that it is 
subject to the possibilities at once of polygamy and of divorce. 
The Musulman contract of marriage is accordingly never in any 
case the same contract as the Christian contract of marriage. 





The character of marriage as it is actually found after the 
Fall and outside Christianity has in this chapter been considered 
as it is illustrated, first by the Chosen People, and, secondly, by 
other non-Christian societies, of whom the Hindu and Musul- 
man communities of India have been taken as_ sufficient 





1 Baillie, Digest, ii. Imameea, p. 42. 2 Ibid. p. 28. 
8 Ibid. p. 110. 


OF MARRIAGE AFTER THE FALL (es: 


examples. A larger number of examples appears to be 
unnecessary, because the prevalence of (1) polygamy, or (2) 
divorce, or (3) both among non-Christian peoples is matter of Whe-e 
notoriety. Wherever these practices are found it is clear that Pve4my 
the marriage contract is not the same as that which alone isis pape 
recognized by the prevalent traditions of the Christian Church; contract 
and in dealing with such contracts it is impossible to treat αἰδοῖ 
them as necessarily involving, like Christian marriages, either inert 
exclusive faithfulness or the indissoluble character. At the 

same time it would be indeed a superficial view which should 

on this ground stigmatize non-Christian marriages as mere 

unions of fornication. With all their defects they retain 

certain features of the original Divine institution, of which Yet these 
they are so far forth survivals; and the fact that such defective oe 
unions were permitted and recognized among the Chosen penne 
People, during the time of estrangement which preceded the Divine 
Redemption, should be abundant warning to us rather to search το τον 
out and strengthen whatever they may retain of the original 
righteousness of marriage, than to throw them contemptuously 

aside. Still more imperative does this careful consideration 
become in those rare instances which are exemplified by the 
practice of some of the Hindus, where the conjugal consent is 

given and maintained at the same high level, as regards ex- _, 
clusiveness and indissolubility, as is the case with Christian sanctifica- 
marriages. Failing the sanctifying power of the indwelling Skit eee 
Spirit, such marriages must necessarily lack the special pees 
character of holiness which attaches to Christian marriage ; 

and where this character is lacking, the Christian Church, as 

will be seen in chapter viil.,is not prepared to admit that a meen 
marriage is necessarily indissoluble, however high may have higher the 
been the conditions of the contract. But Saint Paul can say mgm 
of non-Christian marriages: “If any brother hath a wife that union, the 
believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him ine 
not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband ἰΣ 5. Pants 
that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let to the 
her not leave him.”! And clearly the higher the conditions of πτερὸν 


convert, 
the union, the more constraining does this counsel become. 





ἐπ τ οὐ τ 12, 13. 


The 
Rationale 
of 
Christian 


CN Delt μιν ΔΩ 
OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 


T pleased Almighty Gop to suffer the human race to remain 
for thousands of years after the Fall in estrangement and 
degradation, training men gradually by various means and 


matrimony. narticularly by that “law” of the Chosen People, which was 


a pedagogus to bring them to Christ.1. At length, when “the 
fulness of the time was come, He sent forth His Son, born of a 
woman ;”? and the power of the life and death of Christ our 
Lord redeemed the whole fallen race. But that blessed 
redemption, effected for all, needed to be applied to each: and 
by the gift of the Comforter, Gop provided the means by which 
this application should be made. In Christian Baptism the 
Holy Ghost, descending on a human being who offered himself 
in faith and penitence, first* removed that pressing burden of 
euilt which had weighed him down and kept him in a state of 
sin, and by removing it removed the cause of Gop’s estrange- 
ment: and then, not staying His mercies at that blessedness 
of guilt removed, He came and tabernacled within the man, 
making his very body the temple of His own Divine indwelling. 
In so doing He made him a member or limb of Christ, the 
child of Gop, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven. It 
was indeed a regeneration, a new birth. Henceforth the 
Christian was in entirely different relations to Gop, to the 
spirits of good and to the spirits of evil, to his fellow-men, and 
to all things created. He was in a state of grace; he was a 
member of Christ’s mystical body ; he was a temple of Gop the 





1 Gal. ili. 24. 4) Gal. iv. 4, 
3 In logical order: in order of time no distinction can be made. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 7) 


Holy Ghost. Thus blessed, he was now able to “go on from 
strength to strength.”! In his Confirmation he was strengthened 
and confirmed in the new life of his Baptism by the gifts of 
the same Holy Spirit; in his Communions his soul was 
continually strengthened and refreshed by the Body and Blood 
of Christ. When in the natural progress of his life he 
contracted a union with a Christian woman, the relation had 
no longer the same character of desolation which had cursed 
the marriages of his fathers through the ages past. They had 
brought in every case a fallen nature unredeemed to mate with 
a fallen nature unredeemed, and from no such mating was it 
possible that there could ensue holiness of estate, or perfectness 
of union. To an estate neither holy nor perfect there had in 
a sense been conceded certain lcenses themselves too surely 
indicating both unholiness and imperfection. But to the 
Christian all was changed. Himself aglow with the Divine 
indwelling, he contracted a union with a baptized woman in 
whose body, as in his own, the Spirit dwelt. The mutual 
consent or contract contemplated nothing short of the Divine 
ordinance, for any grave breach of that ordinance would undo 
the work of redemption, and once more sink not one only 
but both into that state of sin which was estrangement from 
Gop. Recurring then to the Divine ordinance, marriage needed 
to be the exclusive union of one man with one woman, and it 
needed to be till death them did part. Then in the consum- 
mation following the contract, the contract was concluded and 
ratified, and the estate commenced. It was a holy estate, 
being the estate of matrimony between two persons in whom 
the Spirit dwelt, and as between such being now once more 
according to Gop’s holy ordinance. In this holy estate which 
the contract preceded, and the consummation initiated, there 
was a marvellous oneness of holy hfe, a sense of mutual 
yearning mysteriously satisfied in a peacefulness of mutual 
possession, an interpenetration of the life of each in that of the 
other, all in fact which is implied in that μέγα μυστηρίον, that 
mighty mystery, which no man will ever comprehend in all the 
depths of its far-reaching sympathies, but which is as much 





1 Psalm Ixxxiv. 7. 


The Divine 
institution 
alone 
concerned. 


76 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the heritage of high Christian union to-day as it was in the 
times of the Apostles. It is a union like the union of Christ 
with His Church. It is holy ground. Yet for all this it is the 
union of those who, redeemed though they be, are yet not free 
from the infirmities of the Fall, from the sinful tendencies of 
the fallen nature, from the imperfections and the jarrings of 
elements not entirely brought into accord. Holy though the 
estate of Christian marriage is, yet in its closest and most 
intimate union there must ever pass at least the shadow of a 
shame. Paradise has been, and Paradise will be, but it is not 
Paradise now. The redeemed warriors of the Church Militant 
are neither the unengaged nor the triumphant; they are in the 
battle, and they have had their wounds, and their wounds are 
smarting still. And, though grace be preserved both in husband 
and in wife, yet every imperfection of each must tend to lessen 
the perfectness of the union itself, and to make it by so much 
fail to realize that highest ideal which is as the union of Christ 
with His Church. 

So far by way of general statement and to distinguish 
Christian marriage from marriage outside Christianity. Argu- 
ment in support of what is here asserted will be brought 
forward as the characteristic features of the estate come to 
be considered in detail. 


A. OF THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 


A question which obviously hes at the threshold of any 
investigation into the character of Christian marriage is the 
question, What is essential and what is not essential for the 
constitution of the holy estate of Christian matrimony? In 
making this enquiry it may not be useless to repeat that we 
have nothing here to do either with the civil regulations of 
particular states, or with the merely ecclesiastical regulations of 
particular churches. It is the Divine institution which it is 
sought to elucidate. Thus, for instance, it is indisputable that 
some public solemnization, ecclesiastical or civil, is required by 
the marriage law of England (since Lord Hardwicke’s Act) 
before a marriage can be not only recognisable, but in any 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY th 


sense valid. Without the solemnization a marriage is simply 
null and void. But this is nothing to the point as regards the 
Divine institution. Again, it was a maxim of the law of Rome 
that “consent, not cohabitation, makes a marriage,’ and the 
status of marriage was thus acknowledged as immediately 
resulting from the contract alone; but this again is nothing to 
the point as regards the Divine institution. So again, a par- 
ticular church may require for the better ordering of Christian 
life that no marriage shall be recognised which is entered into 
without the presence of a priest, but such a requirement may 
be made without a thought that the presence of the priest 
forms any part of the Divine institution of marriage, considered 
in itself, and apart from the calls of expediency. It may be 
decided by an ecclesiastical or civil court that certain subsidiary 
facts shall be taken as sufficient evidence of a copula carnalis : 
but if the copula be of the essence of marriage as Divinely 
instituted, no subsidiary evidence, however conclusive it may be 
held by the practice of the court, can make a union to be 
a marriage in its own essential character, if the copula has not 
in fact found place. This enquiry then is concerned neither 
with civil nor with ecclesiastical regulations, but with the 
essential character of Holy Matrimony as instituted by God, 
and restored by Him among the Christian people. 

There are four heads of enquiry which emerge from the προς 
theology of the schools and from the practice of the courts. heads of 
(1) Is it indispensable that the persons to be married should 7" ”’ 
both be baptized? (2) Is the public solemnization, with the 
priestly benediction, a necessary feature? (3) Is it essential 
that there should be a preliminary contract, whether with or 
without the priestly benediction? (4) Is the copula carnalis 
merely an ordinary accompaniment of the marriage state, or is 
there no marriage state without it? Whether it is in every 
case indispensable that both persons should have been baptized 
has been disputed, and indeed rightly or wrongly some marriages 
in which only one of the persons has been baptized have been 
celebrated with Christian rites, both in the East and in the 
West. Many theologians in the East, and some in the West, 
maintain that without the priestly benediction there is no 


Baptism is 
essential. 


Roman law 
and 
customs 
should be 
consulted. 


(i) Roman 
Law. 
Mutual 
consent 
the one 
essential 
eature. 


78 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Christian marriage. A long array of theologians and of canon- 
ists in the West have held that neither the benediction nor the 
copula is of the essence of marriage, but that a marriage is 
made by the expression of the contract and by it alone. Other 
theologians and canonists have maintained the essential cha- 
racter of the copula, not indeed alone, but as following on the 
contract; and this, as will be seen, is the view which has really 
ruled the practice of the courts, and which alone can harmonize — 
the difficulties of the subject. 

(1) Is i indispensable that both the parties to a marriage 
should have been baptized ? 

This question involves a long and difficult enquiry which 
can hardly be satisfactorily attempted, apart from the cognate 
question of the divorce and remarriage of converts. Both 
these questions will accordingly be treated together in chapter 
VIIL., to which reference may be made. Here the conclusion of 
that chapter as to the present question may be anticipated. It 
is that no marriage can be recognised as Christian marriage in 
which at the time of first entering upon the marriage state one 
of the parties was baptized, and the other unbaptized: unless 
indeed and until the unbaptized partner receive baptism. 

(2) Is the public solemnization with the priestly benediction 
a necessary feature ? 

It is impossible to understand the significance of the testi- 
mony of history upon the subject of the essentials of Christian 
marriage without a clear grasp of the requirements of Roman 
law, and of the chief features of Roman custom. The Christian 
Church for many centuries simply accepted and conformed to 
the Roman law and Roman customs so far as was compatible 
with Christian views, commonly confirming the unions by 
religious benedictions. Now it cannot be too clearly stated that 
in the Roman law the one essential feature of marriage was 
the mutual consent of the parties. Where this consent could 
be supported by any sort of sufficient evidence, there a marriage 
was admitted; while on the other hand no amount of external 
formality, not even completed documentary contracts, would 
establish.a marriage if this consent could be disproved. Quin- 
tilian lays this down very expressly: “There is no bar, which 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 79 


renders a marriage by the intention of the contracting parties 
to be less valid, even though the tables have not been sealed. 
For it will have been of no service to have sealed the tables if 
it shall appear that the intention of matrimony did not exist.”! 
Similarly a constitution of Diocletian and Maximin provides 
that when there is no marriage, instruments made to prove 
marriage are invalid, but that where there are no such instru- 
ments a marriage lawfully contracted is not void.2 The best 
evidence of marriage was cohabitation matrimonii causa ; and 
the matrimonit causa might be proved in various ways. No 
form of solemnization at any time concluded a marriage, but 
every such form, and in particular the bringing home of the 
bride, was evidence of marital intention.? It is probable that 
the great stress laid on the bringing home of the bride as 
a proof of marital intention was really due to the fact that it 
supphed the best evidence of the copula usually available: yet 
the copula was never an essential feature of marriage according 
to the Roman law. Perhaps more than any other system of 
human law the Roman law regarded marriage as a contract 
pure and simple. Like any other contract it was voidable 
at any time by mutual consent, and when we come to treat of 
the subject of divorce it will be seen that the Christian Church 
in the Eastern empire was unable to finally overthrow the legal 
sanction to divorce by mutual consent, till the close of the 
ninth century. It is clear that under these circumstances the 
status, of which the copula is the most essential characteristic, 
was not held to have satisfied the contract, or even to have 
modified it in any important degree. At any time the con- 
tracting parties were as free to rescind their contract by mutual 
consent as they had been to form it. There is thus no ground 
for surprise in the dictum of Ulpian, which became an axiom 





1 Quintilian, Jnst. ν. 11, 32. “ Nihil obstat, quo minus justum matrimonium 
sit mente cceuntium, etiamsi tabule signate non fuerint. Nihil enim proderit 
signasse tabulas, si mentem matrimonii non fuisse constabit.” 

2 Code, v. 4. 138. ‘‘Neque sine nuptiis instrumenta facta matrimonii ad 
probationem sunt idonea, diversum veritate continente ; neque non interpositis 
instrumentis jure contractum matrimonium irritum est, quum omissa quoque 
scriptura cetera nuptiarum judicia non sunt irrita.” 

® Code, V..3. Ὁ. 


(ii) Roman 
customs, 


These 
varied 
with the 
class of 
marriage 
adopted. 


(a) 
Marriages 
establish- 
ing the 
Manus. 


(a) Con- 
farreatio. 


80 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of the Roman law, that “consent, not cohabitation, makes a 
marriage (nuptias non concubitus sed consensus facit).’ The 
adoption of this maxim in later times into the Canon law, alike 
of the East and of the West, has led to many difficulties, not 
the least of them being that no system of Christian law can 
accord the freedom of divorce, which is necessary to the 
consistent maintenance of the theory of mere contract. As 
regards the Roman law, however, the maxim is. entirely 
intelligible. Marriage was a contract: and for a contract the 
one essential was sufficient evidence of mutual consent. 

By the Roman Law, then, it was not ordinarily essential for 
the validity of a marriage that there should be (1) any outward 
solemnization, or (2) the sexual union. What was essential 
was (3) mutual consent, and mutual consent alone. 

While, however, it was not essential to the validity of a 
marriage that it should be preceded by any outward formalities, 
custom with the Romans as with other peoples required that 
the marriage relation should be inaugurated with certain 
significant ceremonies.t These would to’ some extent vary 
with the class of marriage adopted. Marriages were of two 
principal characters; either (1) they established a conventio in 
manum, bringing the wife into the position of entire legal 
subordination to the husband as head of the family, a position 
which was described as being under the husband's “ hand,” or 
(2) they did not establish such a conventio, and the wife 
remained more independent and from the legal standpoint less 
entirely identified with the husband’s family. 

Marriages which established a conventio in manum might be 
effected in any one of three ways: 

(a.) Confarreatio. This appears to have been the most 
ancient, the most honoured, and the most religious form of 
marriage. The contract had to be made in the presence of 
ten witnesses. It was accompanied by a religious ceremony 
in which a sheep was sacrificed and its skin spread over two 





1 As regards the matter of the next few pages I wish to disclaim all pretension 
to original work in the field of classical antiquity. The points noticed will be 
found in most standard works upon the subject. I have of course verified the 
references.—O. D. W. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 81 


chairs upon which the bride and bridegroom sat down with 
heads covered.t| The marriage was then ratified by the pro- 
nouncement of a solemn formula or prayer. Another sacrifice 
followed and a further religious ceremony in which the panies 
jfarreus was employed. This was a cake made of far with the 
mola salsa prepared by the Vestal Virgins.2?- The marriage by 
confarreatio was apparently the only one of the Roman forms 
of marriage which necessarily involved any religious ceremony. 
It is obviously therefore the one form of marriage which would 
have failed to commend itself to the Christian community, if it 
had been in vogue at the Imperial period. It appears, however, 
to have dropped out of use. Gaius alluding to the marriage by 
confarreatio says that this legal observance (hoc jus) was in use 
even in his time for Hlamines Majores and some others.2 Even 
in the time of Tiberius it was only observed by a few. 

(8.) Co-emptio. This was a conveyance of the woman by (8) 
mancipatio, and might be described as a fictitious sale per aes e¢ “προ. 
libram, similar in character to the fictitious sales employed in 
emancipation, in testamentary dispositions, and in some other 
processes. * 

(y) Usus. A less formal method of marriage than either (+) ysus, 
confarreatio or co-envptio, but equally effective in bringing the 
wife “ within the hand of the husband, and placing her in the 
same position of legal subordination as would be occupied by 
his daughter,” was the method of Usus. 

If a woman lved with a man for a whole year as his wife, 
this not only established a marriage, but brought the woman 
within the husband’s hand. The consent to live together as 
man and wife was the marriage: the wsus for a year had as its 
result the manus, the legal absorption and subordination of the 
wife in the family of the husband. The law of the twelve 
tables provided that if a woman did not wish to come under 
the legal authority of the husband in this way, she was to 
absent herself from his companionship for a period of three 





1 Servius ad Vergilii, <Eneid, iv. 374. 
® Servius ad Vergy. Eclog. vii. 82. 
3 Gaius, Jnstitutes, 1. 112. 
aS Thid.si 31138: 
G 


(0) 
Marriages 
not estab- 
lishing the 
manus, 


In practice 
only these 
were in use 
among 
Christians. 


82 HOLY MATRIMONY 


nights (¢rinoctwwm), every year, and so to break the usus of the 
year. | 

In these three ways—Confarreatio, Co-emptio, Usus—there 
might be effected a marriage which would establish a conventio 
in manum. But a perfectly legal marriage might be effected 
without establishing the conventio in manum, and in the time of 
the Empire it was certainly the exception to contract marriages 
with the manus, the vast majority of marriages being marriages 
without the manus. These marriages were contracted by the 
mere interchange of consent without necessarily involving any 
written contract, or indeed any formality of any kind. Certain 


formalities and ceremonies were, however, usual even in marriages 


without the manus. 

Practically the marriages with which Christians had to do 
were not much concerned with any one of the three ancient 
forms which effected a conventio in manum ; and in considering 
the influence of Roman custom upon the Christian community 
it is not with the interesting distinctions and ceremonies of the 
most ancient Romans that we have to do, but with the cere- 
monies actually current in the time of the Empire. 

There may have been some rare instances of Christian 
marriages which established the conventio in manum ; but speak- 
ing generally it may be said that as regards Christian marriage 
the statement of the three forms of marriages in manuwm may 
be taken as of no other import than to clear the ground; and 
it is with the usual ceremonies of marriages contracted without 
the manus, and with them alone, that this enquiry is concerned. 
It is concerned with them because the Christian community 
would naturally adopt any outward ceremonies in common use, 
which were innocent as involving neither immoral intention nor 
religious unfaithfulness. At the same time it must not be for- 
gotten that no one of these ceremonies, however important it 
might be held, was required for the validity of the marriage, 
which depended on the consent of the parties, and on that alone. 
Hence Christians would reject, or at least tend to reject, any 
customs which were either immoral or religiously unfaithful ; 
and on the other hand it would be an obvious prompting from 





1 Gaius, Institutes, i. 110. 


aye 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 83 


the first that the secular formalities should be supplemented 
by some religious rite acceptable to Christians, which should 
invoke the Divine benediction on so solemn an occasion. This 
is, In fact, exactly what we find. 

The ceremonies of a marriage not involving the manus would 
be divided into (a) the ceremonies of the Sponsalia, and (3) 
those of the Wedding. 

(a) The Sponsalia. It was a common but apparently by no 
means universal practice among the Romans to anticipate the 
formal celebration of the wedding by a formal betrothal known 
as sponsalia. Sponsalia are defined by a legal writer as “the 
recital and promise of future nuptials” (Sponsalia sunt mentio 
et repromissio nuptiarum futuraruny).* | 

It was the practice on some day prior to the actual wedding 
for the parties interested to meet at the house of the bride’s 
father, and there to settle the contract, itself commonly spoken 
of as sponsalia, which was written on tablets (¢abulae legutimae), 
and signed by both the betrothed parties in the presence of 
witnesses.” It would appear to have been at the sponsalia 
rather than on the actual wedding day that presents (arrhac) 
were formally made, to represent or constitute the donatio 
propter nuptias or settlement by the husband on the wife; and 
this formal giving of presents was often accompanied at least in 
the Imperial period by (1) a kiss,? (2) by the placing of a ring 
(annulus pronubus ; probably part of the arrhae) by the man 
upon the woman’s finger, and (3) by the joimimeg of hands 
(conluctatio manwum). The last function of this preliminary 
contract, probably often deferred till some later opportunity, 
was the settlement of the wedding day, for which the auspices 
were commonly consulted.* 

If now it be supposed that the contracting parties were 
Christians, it is obvious that while any reference to auspices 
would be unacceptable, the rest of the ceremonies of the 
᾿ sponsalia would not present any feature open to objection. 





1 Florentinus, ix Dig. 23. tit. Ls. 1. 
2 Juvenal, Sat. ii. 119. ff; vi. 25, 200. Gellius, iv. 4. 
3 Osculo interveniente. Cod. Theod. 111. 5. 5. 
4 Cicero. De Div. i. 16. 
G 2 


The 
Sponsalia, 


A Christian 
marriage 
supposed. 


84 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The meeting of the parties interested at the house of the bride’s 
father, the preparation of the marriage contract, its formal 
signature by the man and by the woman before witnesses, the 
presents, the kiss, the ring, and the joining of hands were all 
perfectly innocent. The question whether the benediction of 
the Christian priest was commonly given at the sponsalia or at 
the later wedding festivities has been sometimes raised; but 
there can be very little doubt that only one benediction was 
originally given, and while this might as the marriage benedic- 
tion be given anywhere in connexion with the marriage 
ceremonies, it would probably, in cases where separate sponsalia 
were solemnized, be given rather at the sponsalia than at the 
subsequent festivities, as being the graver and quieter expression 
of the contract. 

It is, however, certain that formal sponsalia were by no means 
universal, and not in the least essential to the validity of a 
marriage. A Christian, like any other Roman, might prefer to 
be married without the previous ceremony of sponsalia, or 
rather without allowing any interval to elapse between the 
sponsalia and the actual marriage. The exact order of the 
ceremonies is to some extent matter of conjecture even among 
non-Christians, and with Christians there can be very little 
doubt that at first there would be some diversity of practice 
both as regards the character of Christian ceremonies introduced 
and as regards the time of their introduction. 

(8) The Wedding. The actual wedding-day was marked by 
the adorning of the bride in the earlier part of the day, and 
by the bridal procession to the house of the husband in the 
evening, with the ceremonial reception on arriving at the house. 

We may now attempt to follow the order of a Christian 
marriage solemnized at any time during the first three 
centuries. We will suppose that the sponsalia had not taken 
place, but that the important features of the sponsalia had to be 
embodied in the ceremonies of the weddine-day. That day, 
which non-Christians fixed by consultation of the auspices, 
would not be so fixed by the Christians; but it would 
commonly be matter of agreement not only between the 
parties, but also with the bishop or priest, whose approval 
and benediction would be sought. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 85 


I. The adornment of the bride. (1) The vesting. It was 
usual on the evening before or on the wedding-day to vest 
the bride in 

a. The tunica recta.! This was a long white robe with a 
purple fringe, or adorned with ribands. 

ὃ. A girdle (corona, cingulum, zona), which encircled the 
waist, and was to be untied by the husband in the evening. 

ὁ. The bridal veil. This was commonly called flammeum, 
because it was of a bright yellow colour.® 

d. The shoes, of the same bright yellow colour as the veil.4 

(2) The loosing of the hair. 

a. The bride’s hair was often divided with the point of a 
spear ;° 

ὁ. And often altogether let down when the bride was brought 
to her husband. This custom is referred to by two Christian 
writers, Ausonius and Optatus.® Probably the dividing by the 
spear and the unbound tresses were ceremonial relics of the 
marriage by capture. The hair is not, however, shewn as 
unbound in the gilded glasses which appear to represent the 
ceremony of a Christian marriage, but as 

c. Bound by the reticulum, a net, which served the purpose 
of keeping the otherwise unbound tresses in restraint.’ 


(5) The coronation. The bride was crowned with a floral 
wreath. This ceremony is of great interest, as being the 
original of the crowning of bride and bridegroom, which forms 
so striking a feature of the marriage rite of the Eastern 
churches. It appears that at first this crowning had a heathen 
significance. The crown was of the verbena, sacred to Venus, 





1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. viii. 48. 2 Paulus Diaconus, 63. Festus, s. v. Cingulo. 

3 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxi. 8. Schol. ad Juven. vi.225. For use by Christians, 
see the gilded glasses and sepulchral monuments in Garrucci. 

4 Catullus, lxi. 10, luwtewm pede soccum. Paintings at Herculaneum and 
Pompeii. 

5 Ovid, Fasti, ii. 560. Arnobius, ddv. Gent, 11. ὁ. 67. Plutarch, Quaestiones 
Romanae, p. 285 (q. 87). 

6 Ausonius, Idyll xiii.: dederatque comam diffundere ventis. Optatus, lib. 
vi. 95: solverant crinen. 

7 See also Festus, p. 339, for a peculiar dressing of the hair with three tresses 
on each side, ‘‘Senis crinibus nubentes ornantur, quod is ornatus vetustissimus 
fuit ; quidam quod eo vestales virgines ornentur.” 


86 HOLY MATRIMONY 


with other flowers which may or may not have had a similar 
religious import. Tertullian accordingly condemns the practice, 
and makes it an argument against marriages with non- 
Christians as involving the Christian partner in idolatry.? 
It would appear, therefore, that in marriages where both 
parties were Christians the coronation was often omitted. It 
is, however, certain that the coronation was often retained in 
Christian marriages, and that it eventually became universal 
throughout the East.? In Christian usage it came to symbolize 
the marriage of Christ with His Church. To 8. Chrysostom 1ὖ 
signified victory over lust.° 

11. Zhe ceremonies of the sponsalia. The bride being thus 
prepared for the wedding in her father’s house, the bridegroom 
and his friends might be received, and if the sponsalia had not 
already been effected, the due solemnization of the contract 
would now take place. The ceremonies of the contract appear 


to have been : 
1. The subsidiary ceremonies. 


(a) The arrhae. 
(ὁ) The ring. 
(c) The kiss. 
(α) The joining of hands. 
2. The signing of the tables. 
3. The benediction of the priest. 
᾿ 4. The congratulations of the friends. 


΄ 





1 Tertullian, De Corona, c. 13: ““Οογοπδηῦ et nuptiae sponsos, ideo non 
nubamus ethnicis, ne nos ad idololatriam usque deducant, a qua apud illos 
nuptiae incipiunt: habes legem a Patriarchis quidem, habes Apostolum in 
Domino nubere jubentem.”’ 

2 8. Clement of Alexandria. “εἰσὶ yap, εἰσὶ καθάπερ ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι τοῖς γυμνικοῖς, 
οὕτως δὲ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησιάν, στέφανοι ἀνδρῶν καὶ waldwy.” (Stromata vii. c. 11.) 

“«ἐστέφανον μὲν τῆς γυναικὸς, τὸν ἄνδρα ὑποληπτέον: ἀνδρὸς δὲ, τὸν γάμον" 
ἄνθη δὲ τοῦ γάμου τὰ τέκνα ἀμφοῖν. ἅ δὲ τῶν σαρκικῶν λειμώνων ὁ θεῖος δρέπτεται 
γεωργός. στέφανος δὲ γερόντων, τέκνα Téxvwy.” (Paedagog. i. ¢. 8.) 

S. Gregory Nazianzen. “τά δ᾽ ἄλλα δ᾽ ὑμῖν μελέτω καὶ στεφανούτω ὁ πατὴρ 
ws ηὔζατο, τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ εἴπου γάμοις παραγεγόναμεν, ἐτυπώσαμεν ἐνείνων μὲν γὰρ 
εἶναι τοὺς στεφάνους, ἡμῶν δὲ τὰς εὐχάς. (Hpist. 171.) See also Garrucci, tom. 
1 Τὰν [0859 Πᾶν. 10. 11. 

9 §. Chrysostom. ‘dia τοῦτο στέφανοι ταῖς κεφαλαῖς ἐπιτίθενται, σύμβολον 
τῆς νικῆς, ὅτι ἀήττητοι γενόμενοι, οὕτω προσέρχονται τῇ εὐνῇ, ὅτι μὴ κατηγωνίσθησαν 
ὑπὸ τῆς ἡδονῆς. (Hom. ix. in 1 Tim.) 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY \ 87 


1. Of the ceremonies here grouped together as “subsidiary,” 
(a) the arrhae were presents given as an earnest of the donatio 
propter nuptras, or property settled by the husband upon the 
wife at marriage. The giving of these “earnests” was a usual 
formality, which was doubtless accepted by the Christians, as it 
is retained in the Christian services of betrothal, which prescribe 
that gold and silver shall be placed upon the book with the 
ring. 

(0) The ring (annulus pronubus) may have originally formed 
part of the arrhae.1 It is not mentioned among the ceremonies 
of the earlier Roman marriages, but was in use under the 
empire.” Its beautiful symbolism of an endless bond would 
commend itself with a marked significance to the Christian 
community. The ring has been commonly retained in. 
Christian services of espousal. It is represented in the gilded 
glasses,? which shew the accompaniments of marriage. 

(c) The kiss was a recognised ceremony in the Imperial 
period, and was evidently accepted by the Christians without 
difficulty. Tertullian speaks more than once of the kiss and 
the joming of the right hands as calling for the veiling of 
the bride in this first contact with her husband. The earnests, 
the ring, and the kiss are all mentioned as usual in the Civil 
Code.° 

The kiss was often retained in Christian weddings of later 
date as part of the pax. The ofticiant gave the kiss of peace to 
the bridegroom, and the bridegroom to the bride. This appears 
to be the origin of the custom of the kiss which is maintained 
in many churches in England. 

(@) The joining of hands (conluctatio manuwm) was another 





1 Nicholas, Respons. ad consulta Bulgarorwm, Resp. ii. 

*Juvevi. 2/5 Pliny, WON. xxxiu. 1; Tertull, Apolog: 6. 

3 Garrucci, tom. iii. Tav. 195. 11. 

4 Tertullian. ‘* Atquin etiam apud ethnicos velatae ad virum ducuntur. Si 
autem ad desponsationem velantur virgines, quia et corpore et spiritu masculo 
mixtae sunt per osculum et dextras, per quae primum resignarunt pudorem 
spiritus. . . .” (De Virginibus Velandis, ὁ. 11.) 

‘De illis (vivginibus) tamen que sponsis dicantur,.constanter super meum 
modulum pronuntiare contestarique possum velandas ex ea die esse, qua ad 
primum viri corpus, osculo et dextera expaverint.” (De oratione, ο, 22.) 

5 Cod. v. 3, 16. ὲ 


88 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ceremony in common use in the time of the Empire. Ter- 
tullian’s references to it as one of the reasons for veiling a 
betrothed virgin have been already noticed. In course of time 
the joining of hands among Christians was performed by the 
priest.t. Representations of the conluctatio manuum are pre- 
served in various articles which have come down to us from 
Christian antiquity. The ceremony has assumed a prominent 
place in Christian services of espousal. 

2.. The actual contract was centred in the signing of the 
tables (tabula nuptiales).? The business of the dowry, which 
was an important feature of the Roman marriage, came in 
here. The bride and the bridegroom both signed their names 
in the presence of witnesses. SS. Ambrose speaks of the 
witnesses of the sponsalia in his day and among Christians 
‘as ten in number, the same number as had been required by 
the old rites of the marriage by confarreatio.* 

3. It would probably be after the signing of the tables that 
the benediction of the Christian priest, 1f present, would be sought. 
That this benediction was introduced very early is certain. 
The authorities will be noticed presently in connexion with the 
subject of the significance to be attached to the benediction. 

4, The congratulations of the friends constituted a feature of 
some importance in a Roman marriage. The witnesses to the 
contract, and presumably any other friends present, wished 
the bride and bridegroom good fortune (the feliciter®). Most 
probably the gilded glasses which have come down to us from 
the early Christians with representations of the marriage 
ceremony are connected with this practice. They bear such 
legends as (1) VIVATIS IN DEO, (2) POMPEIANE TEODORA VIBATIS, 
(3) MARTVRA-EPECTETE-VIVATIS, (4) PIE ZESIS, (5) FELICITER 
ZESES-SIRTCA-LUCIFER-VIVAS-CUMTVIS. δ 





1 §. Gregory Nazianzen, Hpist. lvii. 

2 (a) Cut Stone of the Abbate Andreani; (0) Ring (Buonarotti, Vetri 208) ; 
(c, d) Gilded Glasses (Garrucci) ; (6) Medal on the marriage of Pulcheria with 
Marcian.—Mozzoni, Tav. ist. eccl. v. 55. ; 

$ Juvenal, ii. 119 ; Tacitus, dun. xi. 30. 

* S$ Ambrose, De laps. virg.5: “Nam si inter decem testes confectis spon- 
salibus, nuptiis consummatis, queevis femina viro conjuncta mortali, non sine 
magno periculo perpetrat adulterium.” 

> Juvenal, Sat. 11. 119: ‘‘ Signate tabule, dictum ‘ feliciter.’” 

© Garrucci, tom, iii, Tavv. 195. 11; 198. 4; 195. 12; 199. 3; 198. 3. 


——sr a eee ee eeeeeeeeeEeeeeeEeeEeEeEeEeEeeEeeeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—— ee eee 


= 2 ene st 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 89 


III. Zhe Home-coming of the Bride—The leading home of 
the bride in triumphal procession in the evening, and her 
reception in her new home, formed the crowning incident 
of the marriage ceremonies. It constituted, as has been 
noticed, the best proof of marriage, as supplying the best 
evidence of marital intention. It is probable that some of 
the features of the ordinary Roman procession would partake 
of the heathen character, and these the Christian would feel 
constrained to avoid. It is certain, however, that even the 
Christians regarded the marriage ceremonies as incomplete till 
the leading home of the bride had taken place. For them, as 
for their non-Christian neighbours, there would doubtless be 
the torchlight procession, the supporters and friends in 
attendance, the singing by the way, the distaff and the spindle 
in the new housewife’s hands. For them as for their neigh- 
bours would be the ceremonial salutation of the door-posts, 
and the carrying of the bride across the threshold of her new 
home. The husband would be ready with the fire and water to 
welcome her, the marriage feast would be set out, the lectus 
genvalis solemnly prepared. But in connexion with the evening 
festivities there was a danger to the Christian bridal party, not 
now directly from the customs of heathen worship, but from 
the license and immorality which heathen usage had spread 
around. Unseemly songs and unseemly practices, into which 
there is no occasion to enquire in detail, were but too commonly 
introduced at marriage festivals, and formed one of the curses 
of custom against which for centuries the Christian teacher had 
to raise his voice in protest.? 

The ceremonies of a- Christian marriage, such as they might 
have been at any time during the first three centuries of 
Christianity, have thus been briefly reviewed. If, as was 
perhaps most commonly the case, the sponsalia were effected 





1 Sidon, Zp. i. 5: ‘‘Nondum cuncta thalamorum pompa defremuit, quia 
necdum ad mariti domum nova nupta migravit.” 

* §. Chrysostom, in Hpist. 1. ad Corinth, Hom, xii.: ‘* Kal yap χορεῖαι καὶ 
κύμβαλα καὶ αὐλοὶ καὶ ῥήματα καὶ ἄσματα αἰσχρὰ Kal μέθαι καὶ κῶμοι καὶ πολὺς 
ὁ τοῦ διαβόλου τότε ἐπεισάγεται Popurds.” See also 8. Chrysostom, Hom. 48, 6, in 
Gen. c. 24, and Hom. 56 in Gen. c. 29. 


Christian 
marriage 
was Roman 
marriage, 
witha 
benediction 
introduced. 


It took 
place in the 
house, 


but later in 
the church. 


00 HOLY MATRIMONY 


separately at some date prior to the actual marriage, the usages 
classed above under the second heading as the “ceremonies of 
the sponsalia” would take place then, while those classed 
under the first and third heads as the “adorning of the 
bride,’ and the “leading” her “home,” would be proper to 
the actual wedding-day. In time there came to be in such 
eases a double benediction, one at the sponsalia and one at 
the wedding; but the earliest ages have left no indications of 
the practice. 

This review of the solemnities accompanying a marriage 1s 
necessary for the proper understanding of the Christian rites. 
The marriage of the early Christians was simply the marriage 
of Roman law and Roman custom, with sometimes, probably 
almost always, a Christian prayer of benediction somewhere 
introduced. It took place, as such marriages always had taken 
place, in the houses of the parties. The ceremonies of the 
sponsalia, including the formal signing of the tables, were 
effected at the house of the bride’s father; the solemn re- 
ception of the bride in the evening was in the house of the 
bridegroom, now become her own. With the removal of 
persecution and the recognition of Christian worship, a most 
important change ensued. Whereas hitherto the marriage had 
been solemnized in the house, it now became usual to repair to 
the church for the priest’s benediction. ‘There was probably a 
reason for this, besides the natural wish to give all attainable 
sacredness to the surroundings. It appears that at an early 
date it was usual to celebrate the Holy Eucharist either before 
or after the marriage blessing.t Those who desired this highest 
hallowing of their new estate would necessarily arrange for the 
ceremonies to take place in the church. In a short time the 
practice became so generally established, that the council of 
Laodicea (? A.D. 375) was able to prohibit the solemnization of 
marriages in houses altogether,” and it has ever since been the 
practice of Christendom to give the marriage benediction in 
the sacred temples of the Church. The immediate effect 
would be, so to say, to alter the centre of gravity of the 





1 Tertullian, 4d Uxorem 11. 9; “ confirmat oblatio.” 
2 Canon 58. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 91 


ceremonies. Whereas in the earliest period the benediction 

had been given, as it were, by the way and in a corner, some- 

where among the ancient ceremonies of the Roman people, 

now the ceremonies which are retained seem to be retained 

as the setting of the great central feature of the Divine 
hallowing. The bride is still adorned as before in the long 

white robe, and with the seemly veil. Her crown of flowers is 

in the Hast made one of the most prominent features of the 

sacred benediction. The ring still typifies a constancy which 

is now less than ever to know of severance; the earnests of a 

fitting settlement are formally presented in the church as before 

in the house; the hands are solemnly joined, but now by the 

priest; the kiss itself is sometimes taken up into the paa of 
Christian custom, and made as it were a breath with the 
hallowing of the Lord. ‘There is no intention to obscure the ams oe 
ereat fact of the mutual consent of the parties, which is came to be 
indeed made at least as prominent in the Christian ceremonies Peace a 
as it was before in the non-Christian sponsalia; but above fature. 
it rises the sense of the hallowing which goes forth in 
marriage to members of Christ’s Body, and this seems to 

find its utterance in the words of blessing, and the uplifted 

hand of the Christian priest, who stands over the pair as 

they bow before him, and joins them together with the 
authority of Gop. 

It can be no matter of surprise if the common sentiment in Benedic- 
many parts of Christendom has adopted the conclusion that Πρ το σοι 
the benediction of the Christian priest is an essential, and regardedas 
indeed the main essential, of a Christian marriage. Nor has meas 
this common sentiment been unsupported by serious theologians. 

In the East it has for centuries been the prevalent doctrine I» the 
that the formal solemnization before the Church is not less ~*** 
necessary than the mutual consent of the parties. 

This is, for example, the teaching of the Orthodox Confession Par. 
of the Patriarch Peter Mogilas, of Kiev (4.p. 1640),! which of Peter 
-has been confirmed by various synods, and is admitted ™°#** 
throughout the East to be of very high authority. This 





1 OQ  ρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς πίστεως τῆς καθολικῆς Kal ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς 
ἀνατολικῆς,᾽᾿ in Kimmel, Monum. I. 


92 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Confession lays down that there are three essentials for 
Christian marriage : 


(1) Suitable matter (ὕλη ἁρμόδιος), 1.6., ἃ Man and a woman 
whose marriage no impediment bars. 

(2) A duly ordained priest or bishop (ὁ ἱερεὺς, ὅπου va εἶναι 
νομίμως κεχειροτονημένος ἢ ὁ ἐπίσκοπος»). 

(9) The invocation of the Holy Ghost, and the solemnity of 
the formularies (ἡ ἐπίκλησις τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος Kal 
τὸ εἶδος τῶν λογίων). 

The teaching of the Confession appears to be generally 
received. It is not, however, denied by learned Eastern writers 
that the formal solemnization and the presence of the priest 
were not in early ages always required. 

Bae In the West the subject of the essential character of the 
priestly benediction acquired interest in the 16th century from 
Melchior the teaching of Melchior Canus. He maintained that the 
anaes priest was the minister of the sacrament, and that while 
marriage not celebrated in facie eeclesie might be true and 
valid marriage, 1t could not be a sacrament. A fundamental 
error which appears to have lain at the root of the teaching of 
Melchior Canus was the conception that the sacrament was 
something distinct from and superadded to the natural marriage 
union, instead of the taking up of that union into a hallowed 
condition. Melchior Canus seems to have been the first writer 
in the West, except, perhaps, William of Paris, who maintained 
the essential character of the priestly benediction; but his 
teaching acquired importance from the influential character of 
the theologians who adopted it. Sylvius, Estius, Tournely, 
Juenin, Renaudot, are numbered among them.! It may be said 
that in the present day the views of Melchior Canus receive no 
Pius IX. gypport in Western Christendom. Pius IX., in an allocution 
dated 27 Sept., 1852, affirmed that there “can be no marriage 
among the faithful which is not at one and the same time a 
sacrament”; and in the Syllabus of the Encyclical Quanta 
Cura, put forth in 1864, the following proposition appears as - 
condemned: “The sacrament of marriage is something accessory 





1 Billuart, De Matrimonio, diss. i. a. 6. 





OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY MATRIMONY 93 


to and separable from the contract, and the sacrament itself 
depends simply on the nuptial benediction.” 

The evidence as to the essential character of the benediction 
may now be reviewed. 


I. Holy Scripture. 
There is no passage of Holy Scripture which refers to the 


priestly benediction, or to any religious formality in the solemni- 
zation of marriage among Christians. 


Il. Zhe Church in History. 
AUTHORITIES. 


Ὁ. Ignatius. 
Epistle to Polycarp, ὃ 5 
Πρέπει δὲ τοῖς γαμοῦσι καὶ ταῖς γαμούσαις μετὰ γνώμης τοῦ ἐπι- 
σκόπου τὴν ἕνωσιν ποιεῖσθαι, ἵνα ὁ γάμος ἢ κατὰ Κύριον καὶ μὴ κατ’ 
ἐπιθυμὶαν - πάντα εἰς τιμὴν Θεοῦ γινέσθω. 


S. CLEMENT or ALEXANDRIA. 
Peedagogus, lib. ii. ec. 11. 

᾿Αλλοτρίων δὲ at προθέσεις τριχῶν τέλεον ἔκβλητοι, ὀθνείας τε 
> 7 ἊΝ Ὡς \ / 5 νὰ A 2 7 
ἐπισκευάζεσθαι τῇ κεφαλῇ Tas κόμας ἀθεώτατον. νεκροῖς ἐνδιδυσκούσας 
πλοκάμοις τὸ κρανίον, τίνι γὰρ ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἐπιτίθησι χεῖρα ; τίνα 
δὲ vA / Ἂ 5 Ἂν i ale > >, A 4 ᾿ ἰλλὰ xX LAX , 

€ εὐλογήσει; οὐ τὴν γυναῖκα τὴν κεκοσμημένην, ἀλλὰ τὰς ἀλλοτρίας 


τρίχας, καὶ Ov αὐτῶν ἄλλην κεφαλήν. 


Stromata, iv. 20.2 

€ Τὰ ie x he \ / 4 aN ty ” ἄ 

Αγιάζεται γοῦν καὶ γάμος κατὰ λόγον τελειούμενος, ἐὰν ἡ συζυγία 
« ΄ a (ἀν \ A \ > a Q7 5) / 
ὑποπίπτῃ TO Oem καὶ διοικῆται μετὰ ἀληθινῆς καρδίας ev πληροφορίᾳ 
πίστεως. 

Ps.-CLEMENTINES. 
Epistola Clementis ad Jacobum, ὃ 1." 

Ta δὲ κατὰ τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους ἔστω τάδε. Τ]ρὸ πάντων τοὺς νέους 
πρὸς γάμον ζευγνύτωσαν ἐν τάχει προλαμβάνοντες τῆς νεαζούσης 
ἐπιθυμίας τὰ παγιδεύματα. 

TERTULLIAN. 
De Monogamia, cap. 11.4 

Ut igitur in Domino nubas secundum Legem et Apostolum (si 
tamen vel hoe curas), qualis es id matrimonium postulans, quod eis a 
quibus postulas, non licet habere ; ab episcopo monogamo, a presby- 





1 Lightfoot’s Ed. tom. 11. pp. 349, 350. * Migne’s Ed. tom, i. p. 1337. 
3 Migne’s Ed. S. Clement of Rome, tom. ii. p.41. 4 Jbéd. tom. 11. p, 948. 


Evidence 
as to the 
essential 
character 
of the 
benediction 


94 HOLY MATRIMONY 


. 


teris et diaconis ejusdem sacramenti, a viduis, quarum sectam in te 
recusasti? Et illi plane sic dabunt viros et uxores, quomodo buccellas. 
Hoc enim est apud illos: Omni petenti te dabis. Et conjungent vos 
in Ecclesia virgine, unius Christi unica sponsa. 


Ad Uxorem, wi5 0.19.4 
Unde sufficiamus ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod 
ecclesia conciliat et confirmat oblatio [et obsignat benedictio (angeli 
renuntiant, Pater rato habet) |, or 
[et obsignatum angeli renunciant, et Pater rato habet. 


De Pudicitia, ὁ. 4.3 


Ideo penes nos occultae quoque conjunctiones, id est non prius 
apud Ecclesiam professae juxta moechiam et fornicationem judicari 
periclitantur. Nec inde consertae obtentu matrimonu crimen eludant. 


S. SIRIcrvs. 
Epistle to Himerius, ec. 4.3 
de conjugali autem velatione requisisti, si desponsatam alit puellam, 
alter in matrimonium possit accipere. Hoe ne fiat modis omnibus in- 
hibemus ; quia illa benedictio, quam nupturae sacerdos imponit, apud 
fideles cujusdam sacrilegil instar est, si ulla transgressione violetur. 


Epistola decretalis Syriciti Papae ad Eumerium Tarraconensem 
Episcopum, c. 9.4 

Quicunque itaque se ecclesiae vovit obsequiis, a sua infantia ante 
pubertatis annos baptizari et lectorum debet ministerio sociari, qui ab 
accessu adolescentiae usque ad tricesimum aetatis annum, 51 proba- 
biliter vixerit, una tantum et ea, quam virginem communi per 
sacerdotem benedictione percepit uxore contentus, acolythus vel 
subdiaconus esse debebit.° 


S. Trmotoy or ALEXANDRIA. 
Question 11.° 
Kis τὸ ζεῦξαι γάμον ἐὰν καλέση τις κληρικὸν, ἀκούσῃ δὲ τὸν γάμον 
παράνομον, ἢ θειογαμίαν, ἤγουν ἀδελφὴν τελευτησάσης γυναικὸς τὴν 
μέλλουσαν ζεύγνυσθαι, εἰ ὀφείλει ἀκολουθῆσαι ὁ κληρικὸς, ἢ προσφορὰν 


ποιῆσαι; 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1802. 2 Ibid. tom. ii. p. 987. 
δ lod, Pat.. Lat, tom, san, p. 1136. 
4 Hinschius, Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 522. 
5 “ Te Siricii epistolis tribus ex Hispana desumptis . . . controversio nulla est.” 
(Hinschius, Prolegomena, p. xcviii.) 
Migne, Pat. Grae. tom, xxxilil. Ὁ. 1304, 





OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 95 


S. AMBROSE. 
Epist 19,0874 
Sed prope nihil gravius quam copulari alienigenae, ubi et libidinis, 
et discordiae incentiva, et sacrilegi flagitia conflantur, Nam cum 
ipsum conjugium velamine sacerdotali, et benedictione sanctificari 
oporteat ; quomodo potest conjugium dici, ubi non est fidei concordia. 


S. Bast. 
Homily VII. on the Hexaemeron.? 
ε » 5 lal Ἂς a ” € 4 3 ͵7ὔ Ν 
οἱ ἄνδρες ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας, Kav ὑπερόριος ἀλλήλοις πρὸς 
, , ΄ ε κα , \ ε \ an 3 ΄ὕ 
κοινωνίαν γάμου συνέλθητε" ὁ τῆς φύσεως δεσμὸς, ὁ διὰ τῆς εὐλογίας 


f “A / 
ζυγὸς, ἕνωσις ἔστω τῶν διεστώτων. 


Epistle 217. Canon 69.38 


°A , > = € pee “a Ν fal , NEA: ’ 
ναγνώστης, εἰ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ μνηστῇ πρὸ τοῦ γάμου συναλλάξειεν, 
ἐνιαυτὸν ἀργήσας, εἰς τὸ ἀναγινώσκειν δεχθήσεται, μέιων ἀπρόκοπος. 
Καλεψιγαμήσας δὲ ἄνευ μνηστείας, παυθήσεται τῆς ὑπηρεσίας. τὸ αὐτὸ 
καὶ ὑπηρέτης. 
SYNESIUS. 
Kpist. 105.4 
᾿Ἐμοὶ τοιγαροῦν ὅ τε Θεὸς, ὅ τε νόμος, ἥ τε ἱερὰ Oeodirov χεὶρ, 
γυναῖκα ἐπιδέδωκε. IIpoayopetw τοίνυν ἅπασι, καὶ μαρτύρομαι, Ws ἐγὼ 
2 ov iAA ἥ θά ξ Ἢ « \ 5 “A λάθ 
ταύτης οὗτε ἀλλοτριώσομαι καθάπαξ, οὗτε ὡς μοιχὸς αὐτῇ λάθρα 
oe ἣν; Ν & ‘vA τς lA \ vA ,ὕὔ 5 \ 
συνέσομαι. To μὲν γὰρ ἥκιστα εὐσεβές" τὸ δε ἥκιστα γόμιμον. ᾿Αλλὰ 


/ , Ce or , ἥ ΄ὔ \ XK ΄ ΄ 
βουλήσομαι TE KGL εὔξομαι συχνα μοιπᾶνν και χρήηστα γενέσθαι παιδία. 


S. Innocent I. 
Hpistle te Victricius of Rouen.° 
cum benedictio quae per sacerdotem super nubentes imponitur, non 
materiam delinquendi dedisse, sed formam tenuisse legis a Deo. 
antiquitus institutae doceatur. 


Statuta EccLesiazE ANTIQUAE. 
Canon 101.6 
Sponsus et sponsa, cum benedicendi sunt a sacerdote, a parentibus 
suis vel a paranymphis offerantur. Qui cum benedictionem accepe- 
rint, eadem nocte pro reverentia ipsius benedictionis in virginitate 
permaneant. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. 11. p. 984. 2 Ibid, tom. 1. p. 160. 


3 Ibid. tom. iv. pp. 800, 801. 4 Ibid. Pat. Grae. tom. Ixvi. Ὁ. 1485. 


5 Ibid. Pat. Lat. tom. xx. p. 475. ®& Ibid, S. Leo, tom. iii. p. 889. 


S. Ignatius, 


S. Clement 


of 
Alexandria. 


96 © HOLY MATRIMONY 


Eclogue of Leo the Isaurian and Constantine (740 a.v.) (Quoted 
by Zhishman, p. 158.) 
Hi δὲ κατὰ στένωσιν ἢ διὰ ταπείνωσιν μὴ δυνηθῇ τις εὐπρολήπτως 
A 3 , lal / \ > VA / / 3 5A 
καὶ ἐγγράφως ποιῆσαι γάμον, καὶ ἀγράφως συνίσταται γάμος ἀδόλως 
συναινέσει τῶν συναλλασσόντων προσώπων καὶ τῶν τούτων γονέων, 


εἴτε ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦτο δι᾽ εὐλογίας ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ φίλων γνωρισθῇῃ. 


Capitularies of the Frankish Kings. (Quoted by Van Espen.)! 

Legitur quoque in Capitularibus Reguin Francorum, lib. 7, cap. 179 : 

“Prius conveniendus est Sacerdos in cujus Parochia nuptiae fieri 
debent in Ecclesia coram populo. Et ibi inquirere una eum populo 
ipse Sacerdos debet, si ejus propinqua sit an non, aut alterius uxor, 
vel sponsa, vel adultera. Et si licita et honesta omnia pariter in- 
venerit, tune per consilium et benedictionem Sacerdotis et consultu 
aliorum bonorum hominum eam sponsare et legitime dotare debet.” 


Capttulary of Charlemagne (802 A.D.).? 
Conjunctiones facere non praesumat, antequam episcopi, presbyteri 


cum senioribus populi consanguinitatem conjungentium diligenter 
exquirant, et tune cum benedictione jungantur. 


S. Ignatius (Bp. of Antioch, c. A.D. 70-107) in his Epistle to 
Polycarp? says that it behoves men and women who marry to 
effect their union with the sanction (μετὰ γνώμης) of the 
bishop, in order that the marriage may be according to the 
Lord, and not according to appetite. The bearme of the 
passage on the question before us depends upon the meaning 
of the word γνώμη. It may mean mere approval; but from 
other passages of S. Ignatius* it seems possible that it means 
more, as sanction or benediction. If so, the Christian benediction 
at a marriage ceremony dates back to the close of the first 
century of the Christian era. 

In the time of 8. Clement of Alexandria (at the Catechetical 
School from A.D. 190 to A.D. 203) the custom of priestly 
benediction by the imposition of hands was established. In 





1 Van Espen, De Spons. δὲ Matrim. tit: xii. cap. 5. 

> Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legun, tom. i. p. 95. 
3S. Ignatius, Hpistle to Polycarp, § 5. 

4 Ibid, Eph. 3 or 4. Smyrn. 6, Polyc. c. i. v. 8. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY Or 


the Padagogus he says, referring to marriage, “ For on whom 
does the priest lay his hand? whom will he bless?”? A 
passage in the Stromata may or may not refer to the benediction. 
“(A wife and) marriage properly solemnized (κατὰ λόγον 
τελειούμενος) are hallowed, if the union be subjected to Gop, 
and the life followed with a true heart in fulness of faith.”? 

In the Clementines (A.D. 200?) this passage occurs: “ But tee ca 
concerning the presbyters let these things be ordered. Before tines. 
all let them be prompt in uniting the young men in marriage, 
anticipating the snares of youthful lust.’ 

Tertullian in his Montanist treatise De Monogamia (c. A.D, 217) Tertullian. 
imphes that marriage was ordinarily sought from the bishop 
and clergy, though he couples the widows (presumably the 
official and consecrated widows) with them. 


“In order that thou mayest thus marry in the Lord according to 
the law and the Apostle (if indeed thou hast any care for this), what 
sort of a person art thou who demandest that which is not lawful to 
those from whom thou demandest it; a bishop, the husband of one 
wife, presbyters and deacons of the like obligation, widows whose 
mode of life thou hast in thine own person rejected? And they of 
course will supply husbands and wives just like rolls of bread. For 
this is the rule with them: ‘Thou shalt give to every man that asketh 
thee.’ And they will conjom you in the virgin Church, the sole 
spouse of the one Christ.’ 


The passage is probably not strained if we imply that the 
clergy had to do both with the preliminaries and with the 
solemnization of marriage. 

In the Ad Uxorem (c. A.D. 197) he writes: “Whence shall we 
be able to describe the happiness of that marriage which the 
Church joins together (concilzat, ? brings about), and the oblation 
confirms, and the benediction seals?” Another reading for the 
last phrase has, “angels declare to be sealed, and the Father 
holds as ratified.”® The part of the Church in the solemnization 
appears to be here undeniable. 


_——— 





1S. Clement of Alexandria, Pedagogus, lib. iii. c. 11. 
2 Ibid. Stromata, iv. 20. Some read γυνὴ, others γοῦν. 
3 Epistola Clementis ad Jacobwm, § 7. 

* Tertullian, De Monogamia, ¢. 11. 

> Ibid. Ad Uxorem, lib. ii. c. 9. 


H 


S. Siricius. 


S. Timothy 
of 
Alexandria 


S. Ambrose 


98 HOLY MATRIMONY 


A passage in the De Pudicitva (c. A.D. 217) shews how strong 
in Tertullian’s day was the feeling that a Christian ought to be 
married with religious rites. “Accordingly among us clandestine 
marriages also, that is to say, those not first professed before 
the Church, run the risk of being accounted adultery and 
fornication. Nor do such unions escape the charge on this 
ground, that they were contracted under colour of matrimony.”? 

S. Siricius (bp. 385-398), writing to Himerius, who had 
enquired whether a man might marry a maiden who had been 
betrothed to another, rephes peremptorily in the negative; 
“because if that benediction, which the priest bestows upon 
the woman about to marry, be violated by any breach, such 
violation is held among the faithful as a kind of sacrilege.”? 
It is remarkable that the benediction alluded to is the 
benediction given at the espousal or betrothal; but when once 
a woman has been thus espoused with the benediction of the 
Church to one man, Siricius indicates as sacrilegious any 
subsequent union with another man. 

Another passage of the same Siricius requires that a sub- 
ordinate minister of the Church shall be one who has had only 
one wife, “whom he has received as a virgin with the usual 
benediction by the priest.”? 

In the 11th of the Questions recorded by 8. Timothy of 
Alexandria (patriarch A.D. 381) it is asked: “If any call a clerk 
to join a marriage, and Ire hear that the marriage is contrary to 
law, or sacrilegious (incestuous), as in the case of a man about 
to marry his deceased wife’s sister, whether the clerk ought to 
follow, or to make the offering.”4 

S. Ambrose, attacking marriages between Christians and 
unbelievers, says: “ For when marriage itself must be sanctified 
by the priestly veiling and by the benediction, how can that 
be called marriage where there is no agreement of faith 2?” 





1 Tertullian, De Pudicitia, c. 4. 

5 S. Siricius, Hpist. to Himerius. Migne, Patrolog. Lat. tom. xiii. p. 1186. 

3 Epistola decretalis Syricii Papae ad Eumerium Tarraconensem Episcopwm, 
e. 9. (In Hinschius, Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, p. 522. 

4S. Timothy of Alexandria, 9, 11. See Migne, Pat. Graec, tom. xxxiii. 
p. 1304. 

5 §. Ambrose, Hpist 19, §7. 


————— .. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 99 


Ὁ. Basil, in his Homilies on the Hexaemeron, speaks of S. Basil. 
marriage as the “bond of nature” and “the yoke by the 
blessing” (ὁ διὰ τῆς εὐλογίας ζυγὸς). In canon 69 he rules 
that a reader who has married clandestinely without a betrothal 
shall cease from his ministry. Such marriages would presumably 
be without the blessing of the Church.? 

Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais in the 5th century, says that Synesius. 
“Gop, the law, and the holy hand of Theophilus bestowed my 
wife upon me.”? Theophilus was the patriarch of Alexandria. 

Ὁ. Innocent I. (bp. 402-417 a.p), in his letter to Victricius 5. tnnocent 
of Rouen, says that “it is taught that the benediction which ἢ 
is imposed by the priest upon those who are marrying has 

maintained the form of the law instituted of old by Gop.” 

In the Statuta Ecclesiae Antique, published by Quesnel, there The 
occurs a canon (No. 101) which lays down that the bride and ee 
bridegroom, when they are about to be blessed by the priest Antiquae. 
(cum benedicendi sunt a sacerdote), are to be presented by their 
parents or paranymphs, and goes on to emphasize the reverence 

which is due to the benediction when it has been received 

(Qui cum benedictionem acceperint, eadem nocte pro reverentia 

apsius benedictionis in virginitate permaneant).» The canon is 
referred to the African Church at the close of the fourth 
century. 

The passages hitherto quoted are abundant evidence that the the 
benediction of the priest was an ordinary accompaniment of ei 
Christian marriage. It was not, however, for many centuries accom- 
required by either the ecclesiastical or the secular law as a Panmentot 
condition of valid marriage. By a constitution of Theodosius rave 
and Valentinian in A.D. 439, the mere consent of the parties condition of 
was recognised as sufficient for the constitution of a marriage.® Lai a 
The 22nd Novel of Justinian makes the same recognition.’ ana 


The first indication of a tendency on the part of the secular V7entinian 





1S. Basil, Homily vii. on the Hexaemeron. 

2 Ibid. Epist. 217, Can. 69. 3 Synesius, Hpist. 105. 

* S. Innocent L, Epistle to Victricius (Migne, Patrolog. Lat. tom. xx. p. 475). 

° Migne’s Edition of S. Leo, tom. iii. p. 889: 

® Nov. Theodosti, ii. tit. xii: ‘‘Consensu licita matrimonia posse contrahi.” 

7 Quoted by Zhishman, p. 140: ““γάμον μὲν οὖν διάθεσις ἀμοιβαία moet, τῆς 
τῶν προικῴων γε οὐκ ἐπιδεομένη προσθήκης." 


He? 


Justinian. 


The 
Eclogue. 


The Capi- 


tularies 
of the 
Frankish 
Kings. 


100 HOLY MATRIMONY 


law to adopt and ratify the Church form of solemnization 
appears to be found in the 74th Novel of Justinian (A.D. 537), 
which enacts : 

(1) That persons of noble standing, down to Senators and 
Illustres, are not to conclude marriage without the execution 
of proper instruments in writing with regard to (a) the dos, 
and (ὁ) the donatio propter nuptias. 

(2) That persons of gentle standing are at least to make 
known their marriage in a church and before its legal officer, 
not the bishop, but the registrar or notary public of the 
church, whose business it was to summon three or four of the 
clergy as witnesses that on such a date the specified parties 
were united in the church). 

(3) That the common people generally may continue to 
contract valid marriages without any external solemnity.’ 

During the following centuries the practice of solemnizing 
betrothals and marriages in the Church, with the use of the 
Euchology, no doubt tended to become universal; but it does 
not appear to be required even in the Eclogue of Leo the 
Isaurian and Constantine (740 A.p.), for marriage 15 recognised 
by the Eclogue, whether it be by written instruments or by the 
verbal consent of the parties and of their parents, and whether 
it be solemnized in a church or merely with the cognisance 
of friends.? 

Passing to the Western Empire, we find in the Capitularies of 
the Frankish Kings a provision that after the priest has made 
proper enquiries a man may espouse and lawfully dower a 
woman by the advice and benediction of the priest, and with 
the consent of other good men.? : 

The Capitulary of Charlemagne (A.D. 302) rules that no one 
is to presume to make marriages before that the bishops, the 
priests, and the seniors of the people diligently enquire of the 
consanguinity of the parties seeking marriage, and that after- 
wards the parties are united with the benediction.4 





(ἐκδικῳ 





1 Zhishman, p. 141. 

? Kelog. ii. 8, quoted by Zhishman, p. 158. 

3 Lib. vii. c. 179, quoted by Van Espen, tit. xii. cap. 5. 

* Monumenta Germanic Historica. Legum, tom. i. p. 95. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 101 


Summing up the evidence of the first thousand years of Summary 
of evidence 


Christianity, it may be said to be sufficiently clear: ΕΣ ΕΣ 
(1) That where a marriage had been celebrated by Christians eae 


with the usual civil forms, there being no bar which, by Christi- 
Christian rule, would hinder the marriage, it was accepted as Ν᾽ 
valid, and no priestly benediction was required as a condition 

of validity. 

(2) That, notwithstanding, from the earliest age of Chris- 
tianity the priestly benediction was a usual accompaniment of 
marriage between Christians. 

The practice of the past nine centuries is entirely in ac-~ Practice 
cordance with this evidence. It is unnecessary to follow it in re ΞΕ 
detail, but it may be briefly stated that prior to the Council of centuries. 
Trent (A.D. 1545-1563) the priestly solemnization was not 
required by the Canon law as a condition of validity, and 
that where, as a result of the Council of Trent, this require- 
ment is now made, it is commonly understood to be so made in 
obedience to the decree of the Council as a positive ecclesiastical 
regulation. At the present day in the Latin Church marriages 
which have been effected only by consent and the copula are 
still held valid on occasion in those countries where the decrees 
of the Council of Trent have never been published. The same 
has been always the case in Scotland. It was no less the case 
in England till the passing of Lord Hardwicke’s Act in 
ASD 709: 

Since, therefore, in the history of the Christian Church it has Conclusion. 
been usual, when occasion required, to admit marriages as valid 776°" 
which had not been solemnized with the priestly benediction, essential. 
and since also there is no requirement of such benediction in 
Holy Scripture, we conclude that solemnization with the 
priestly benediction is not of the essence of Christian 
matrimony. 

(3) Ls ut essential that there should be a preliminary contract, 
whether with or without the priestly benediction ? 

The mutual consent of the parties is a feature of the marriage Consent 
union which is admitted by the universal tradition of Christians rsemea ng 
to be altogether essential. Where there is in either party tobe_ 
an absence of free consent to the union, there the union is eg 


“- 


102 HOLY MATRIMONY 


no marriage. In this particular the usage of the Christian 
Church did in truth only accept the usage of Rome. By the 
axiom of Ulpian it was consent, and consent alone, which 
constituted marriage (nuptias non concubitus sed consensus 
facit).1 As will presently be seen, the Christian Church has 
not been able to follow the Roman law in its clearly-cut 
restriction of the essential character of marriage to the mutual 
consent of the parties; but the Church has never been found to 
sanction marriages in which the element of consent was lacking. 
There have indeed been times and countries in which the con- 
ventional tone has required that the consent of others besides 
the principals should be obtained; and the law is often found 
making similar requirements. Thus the law of Rome ordinarily 
required the consent of the persons in whose potestas the bride 
and bridegroom respectively were living; and the law of 
England requires that minors shall not’ be married against the 
will of their parents or guardians. In some codes more stress 
appears to be laid on the consent of the father than on that of 
the bride. In all such cases, however, it will be found that the 
regulations are in restraint of the sufficiency of the mutual 
consent of the parties, and never in supersession of such mutual 
consent. By particular laws parties may be required to be 
supphed with other qualifications besides their own mutual 
consent; but no qualification is ever to any purpose unless 
their mutual consent is present. It is the mutual consent of 
the parties themselves which is, without exception, treated as 
essentiel. Any other consent, however desirable, is only a 
particular requirement, which has no claim to the essential 
character. 

The spirit of the Roman law in regarding mutual consent as 
the one efficient cause of marriage has been sufficiently illustrated 
in the foregoing section. That it might in no case be superseded 
is clear from a constitution of Diocletian and Maximin which 
rules that none can be compelled either to marry or to be 
reconciled after divorce.” 

So complete was the Christian acceptance of the principle of 





1 Ulpian, in Digest, 1. 17. 30. 
2 Code, lib. v. t. iv. 1. 14. 


—_—— a “ὦ 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 103 


the necessity of consent in marriage that there is no single 
instance known of the denial of it by any Christian writer. 
It accordingly called for no justification or assertion, and it is 
difficult to find any early Christian authorities bearing on the 
subject. Ulpian’s maxim was occasionally recited,! and, doubt- 
less after many centuries of established authority in the 
practice of the episcopal courts of Italy, it found a lasting 
place in the Decretum of Gratian. The various canons which 
deal with forcible abduction have some bearing on the subject. 
But on the whole it may be said that there is not much to refer 
to on the subject of consent before the time of Gratian and the 
embodiment of the canon law. ‘That law may afford some 
illustrations, which, if late in point of time, are still on the 
whole but expanded statements of earlier practice. 

One of the features of the later ecclesiastical law of marriage rystrated 
is the formal enumeration of the recognized impediments. by wpe 
Three of these impediments, viz., Error, Force and Fear, and 
Abduction (Error, Vis et Metus, Raptus) are based upon the 
principle that the free consent of the parties is indispensable. 


G.) Lmpediment of Lrror. 


(i) Impedi- 

ea : ment of 
(a) Error as to person. The most familiar instance of a Error. 

mistake with regard to the person of the bride is the instance @ Error 

of Jacob’s marriage with Leah. Leah was substituted for her vera 

sister Rachel by a mere trick of their father Laban; and Jacob, 

alike in any prior ceremony of marriage, and, as it would seem, 

in the subsequent copula, received Leah as being Rachel. There 

had not therefore been any consent on the part of Jacob to a 

marriage with Leah, and according to the principles of the 

canon law,” if Jacob had chosen to repudiate Leah on becoming 

aware of the fraud, he would have been at perfect liberty to do 

so. On the other hand, if he chose to continue the relationship, 


although it had been fraudulently commenced, his consent must 





? As in the Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum. 

* Decretum Gratiani. C. 29, qu. 1, §1. “Erravit, non ergo consentit ; non 
itaque conjux est appellanda, quia non fuit ibi consensus utriusque, sine quo 
nullum matrimonium esse potest.” For particular reference to the case of Jacob 
and Leah see 7 τά. § 8, 4. 


(Ὁ) Error 
as to 
condition, 
fortune, or 
character. 


104 HOLY MATRIMONY 


be understood to confer the character of marriage upon the 
union from the time of the accordance of such consent with 
subsequent (not antecedent) copula. The practice of polygamy 
in the time of Jacob suggested a different solution of the 
difficulty ; he married Rachel, and did not dismiss Leah. 

There is no evidence of any difference of view among 


Christians as to the impediment of error when, as in the case 


of Jacob and Leah, it affects the person. All Christendom 
alike in East and West held the necessity of consent for the 
effecting of a marriage, and an error as to person clearly vitiates 
such consent. So 8. Thomas Aquinas concludes “that what- 
soever hinders the cause in its own nature, hinders also the 
effect civaliter ; but consent is the (efficient) cause of marriage, 
and therefore what excludes consent excludes marriage. 
Consent again is an act of the will, which pre-supposes 
an act of the intelligence; and if the first be lacking, it 
necessarily results that a defect occurs in the second: and 
so, when an error hinders cognition, there follows ἃ. defect 
in the consent itself, and consequently in the marriage; and 
thus error by the law of nature has this result, that it excludes 
marriage.” ! 

(b) Error as regards (a) condition, (3) fortune, or (γ) character. 
‘While it is generally admitted that a mistake as to the person 


of the man or woman invalidates a marriage, because it 


necessarily excludes consent, this kind of mistake, the error as 


to person, is the only error which can be admitted as invalidating 
a, marriage in its essential character. Other errors may invalidate 
mnarriages, as the effect of the positive laws of states or churches, 


but no other error precludes the possibility of the Divine 
anstitution. 

‘There are commonly enumerated, besides the error of person, 
three other descriptions of errors; viz., (a) error of condition, 
as when a free man marries a slave woman, believing her to be 
free; (9) error of fortune, as when a man marries a poor woman, 
believing her to be rich; (y) error of quality (or personal 
character), as when a man marries an unchaste woman, 





18. Thomas Aquinas, in addit. ad. iii. part. Swmme Theologie. Qu. 51, 
art. 1. 





OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 105 


believing her to be pure. In none of these cases is any error 
ordinarily made with regard to the person. 

(a) Error of condition. Difference of condition, or the 
difference which exists when one party is free and the other 
a slave, was in early ages held to be an impediment to 
marriage; not because there was any bar here imposed by 
the Divine institution, but because of the grave difficulties 
and complications which would arise by admitting unions 
which came under the ban of the secular law, and which the 
Church was powerless to maintain in the face of the property 
rights of the slaveholder. Difference of condition is therefore 
an instance of a non-essential impediment imposed by the 
Church of a particular age for local and temporary reasons. 
It acted in restraint of the lberty of individuals to contract 
marriage by mutual consent with whomsoever they might choose. 

A mistake made as to the condition of a wife or husband, 
as if a man married a slave woman believing her to be free, 
would therefore have the effect in the early centuries of 
involving a man in an union which, alike by the law of the 
Church and by that of the State, was regarded as null. Apart 
from the positive restrictions of the law there was no bar to 
such marriages, and by degrees the restrictions were removed. 
As the impediment of condition disappeared from Church 
legislation, so, of course, did any difficulty arising from error 
with regard to it. Such error is not therefore now a practical 
question ; nor can it be said at any time to have affected the 
essential nature of marriage, with which alone this treatise 
has to do. 

(3) Error of fortune. The practices of adventurers give rise 
to many cases of error of fortune. Thus a man, pretending to 
be of noble birth and large property, may succeed in marrying 
a lady of position and fortune. When the fraud is discovered, 
does the marriage stand? ‘The reply of the Church has always 
been to the effect that the marriage must stand, unless indeed 
the error of fortune involve, in fact, an error of person as well. 
If the lady had accepted the person of the adventurer, and, in 
ceiving her consent, had had the conjugal intention with regard 
to that particular man, then accidental circumstances as to 


106 HOLY MATRIMONY 


property or position could in no way invalidate the union. 
Indeed, the very terms of the contract In many cases expressed 
the fact that the marriage union covered all such accidents; 1 
was “for richer, for poorer,” and the lke. 

(y) Error of quality, or personal character. If a man marry 
a woman believing her to be honest, and find she is ἃ pro- 
fessional thief; or marry a woman believing her to be sober, 
and find that she is a habitual drunkard, has such a mistake 
the effect of invalidating the marriage? The reply of Christian 
practice is to the effect that it does not. The mutual knowledge 
of the parties in any marriage is more or less imperfect; and 
even such misapprehensions as those mentioned cannot remove 
the conjugal consent of each to accept the person of the other. 

One case of error qualitatis has given rise to considerable 
controversy. If a man marry a woman who is not a virgin, 
believing her to be a virgin, is he at lberty to put her away ? 

Those who hold with Dr. von Déllinger that the word 
πορνεία in the gospels has reference to pre-nuptial unchastity, 
understand our Lord to teach that in this case a man may put 
away his wife, or rather decline to receive her. Presumably 
they would say that the consent was never fully given, inas- 
much as it would be withheld in the copula itself, which would 
become by such withholding, not the copula of marriage, but 
something short of it. It is certainly not the least of the 
arguments against Dr. von Déllinger’s position that the right 
of putting away a woman under such circumstances has never 
been recognised in the Christian Church. 


(ii.) LInepediment of Force and Fear (Vis et Metus). 

(ii) Impedi- The impediment of force, hke that of error of person, at once 

ae a q validates a marriage, and on the same ground; viz., that the 

fear. consent requisite for a true marriage is not forthcoming. By 
force is not meant abduction, which is commonly classed as 
a separate impediment, but such physical or moral constraint, 
exercised by parents or others, as leads a person to go through 
the form of marriage, and even pronounce the words of consent, 
when the free-will, which alone can give a true consent, is 
wanting. | 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 107 


(111.) Impediment of Abduction (Laptus). 

By raptus is not meant ravishment, but the forcible abduc- 
tion of a woman to a place where she is no longer free, with 
a view to overbearing her to marriage. If by such forcible 
abduction the woman is actually driven against her will into 
the apparent acceptance of a marriage, the marriage falls for 
lack of consent, as in the case of any other compulsion under 
the prior head of Force and Fear, of which indeed, so far as 
affects the essential character of the impediment, abduction 
is but a particular case. 

The historical importance of abduction as a separate impedi- 
ment is due to the many stringent regulations which punished 
this form of violence by pronouncing any marriage which 
followed it, with or without consent, to be absolutely null and 
void. These regulations were of the character of positive laws 
only, there being nothing in the nature of an abduction which 
renders the persons concerned in it incapable of a marriage, 
considered only from the point of view of the Divine law. The 
impediment of abduction in this aspect will therefore not 
concern us. 


These three impediments of (1) Error (of person), (2) Force 
and Fear, and (3) Abduction, so far as it is a form of force 
overriding consent, are thus held to be impediments which not 
only bar the legal recognition of marriages which are vitiated 
by them, but which render such marriages, considered in them- 
selves and from the standpoint of the Divine law, to be no 
marriages at all. In each case the ground is the same, that 
there is no consent or no free consent, and that free consent 
is essential to a true marriage. The recognition of these 
impediments by the canon law of the whole of Christendom 
for many centuries past may be regarded as convincing 
testimony of the acceptance of the principle that consent is 
necessary to marriage; there being at the same time no 
evidence at all of the maintenance of the contrary view. It 
should not indeed be overlooked that no formal enumeration of 
the various impediments to marriage is to be found before the 
middle ages, but the three impediments here noticed as in force 


(iii) Impedi- 
ment of 
abduction. 


Further 
evidence as 
to the 
necessity 
of consent 
not called 
for, 


What is 
covered by 
mutual 
consent. 


(i) The 
Anglican 
Prayer 
Book. 


108 HOLY MATRIMONY 


in no case contradict any rule or practice of the earlier Church, 
and are but the formal classification of generally recognised 
usage. Indeed the Roman law, in its assertion of the principle of 
the necessity of consent, had been simply accepted and followed 
by the Christian Church without contradiction or dispute. 

The question now arises, When two persons agree together to 
be man and wife, how much must this consent be held to 
cover? Some modern forms of contract are much more explicit 
than others. Thus the forms of the present English marriage 
service, which are adapted from the Sarum Ordo ad faciendum 
Sponsalia, are remarkably full.!. The parties are required to 
express their intention 

(a) To take each other as husband and wife, “to live together 
after Gop’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony.” 

(Ὁ) The man to “love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her 
in sickness and in health”; the woman to “obey him, and 
serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health”; 

(c) “ Forsaking all other” to “keep thee only unto her (him), 
so long as ye both shall live,” 

(ad) “To have and to hold from this day forward for better, 
for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, 
to love and to cherish (and to obey) till death us do part, 
according to Gop’s holy ordinance.” 

Accordingly what the parties undertake is not merely such 
marriage as may happen to be sanctioned by particular legisla- 
tion, but (a) “to live together after Gon’s ordinanre in the holy 
estate of matrimony.” Such marriage is understood to involve 
(>) love, comfort, honour, and keeping in sickness and in health, 
and, in the case of the woman, obedience and service. (6) It 





1 The actual words of the betrothal in the Sarum Ordo ad faciendum 
Sponsalia, are as follows: 

“1 N. take the N. to my wedded wyf, to have and to holde fro this day 
forwarde, for better for wors, for richere for poorer, in sykenesse and in hele, tyl 
dethe us departe, if holy chyrche it woll ordeyne, and therto I plight the my 
trouthe. 

“ΤΟΝ, take the N. to my wedded housbonder, to have and to holde fro this 
day forwarde, for better for wors, for richere for poorer, in sykenesse and in hele, 
to be bonere and buxum in bedde and at the borde, tyll dethe us departe, if holy 
chyrche it woll ordeyne, and therto I plight the my trouthe.” (The Sarum 
Missal in English, p. 552.) 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 109 


is exclusive, admitting of no second spouse during the lifetime 
of the first. (d) It is indissoluble, save by death, all accidental 
circumstances of life being accepted as part of the contract. 

These requirements are entirely justified (a) by Holy Scrip- 
ture, (6) by Christian practice, (y) by Reason. 

(a) The requirement that the parties shall take one another 
as husband and wife, to live together after Gop’s holy ordinance 
follows at once from the statement of our Lord that the ordi- 
nance is of Divine institution (see chapter I.). All that the 
Divine institution necessarily involves must be contained in 
the contract, or the Divine. institution will be maimed and 
corrupted. Nor can anything beyond the Divine institution 
be required as part of the essential obligation. Particular 


requirements may be made by particular churches or states, but. 


such requirements fall when allegiance is transferred from such 
particular churches or states to others which do not impose the 
requirements. The Divine institution remains entirely binding, 
whatever particular churches or states may see fit to add or to 
remove. The Divine institution of marriage, which is taught 
in Holy Scripture, is also maintained, as has been seen, alike 
by Christian practice, and by Reason (ch. L.). 

(b) The recital of the duty of the man to love, comfort, 
honour, and keep his wife in sickness and in health, and of the 


a. ‘After 
God’s 
ordinance.” 


b. To love, 


comfort, 
honour, and 


duty of the woman to obey and serve the husband, to love, keep her.” 


honour, and keep him in sickness and in health, while very full, 
considered as a form of expression of the contract, must be 
understood to be only a partial recital of the positive duties 
of Holy Matrimony. Marriage is essentially a mystery, and it 
is much easier to state what it excludes than what it contains. 
As with the great doctrinal mysteries, so with the mystery 
of marriage, the statements which have been formulated are 
chiefly negative in their character, excluding error rather than 
attempting to make any exhaustive statement of the truth. 
Thus Christian marriage is required to be with one partner 
only, excluding polygamy ; and it is required to be undertaken 
till death do part, excluding divorce. But the deep realities 
of the interpenetration of being which marriage involves, do not 
readily lend themselves to the succinctness of expression which 


c. To ‘‘for- 
sake all 
others.” 


ΓΗ] 
death us 
do part.” 


(ii) The 
Roman 
Ritual, 


110 HOLY MATRIMONY 


is possible in a prohibition. All the fulness of mysterious 
union which Gop’s holy ordinance contains must be understood 
to be contained in the undertaking to live according to Gop’s 
holy ordinance. The particular duties specified in the English 
formula doubtless constitute important positive features of 
(ΟΡ 5 holy ordinance, as constantly recognised in Holy Scrip- 
ture, and in the practice of the Church. ἘΜΈΘΥ appear to call 
for no justification in detail. 

(c) The requirement to “forsake all others,” and “keep 
only” to the husband or wife, will be referred to its authorities 
in the chapter on Polygamy. 

(d) The requirement to live together “ till death us do part” 
will also be referred to its authorities in the chapter on Divorce. 
The results of the investigations contained in those chapters may 
be here anticipated in the brief statement that the Divine in- 
stitution of marriage, as restored in the Christian Church, admits 
neither Polygamy nor such Divorce as concedes re-marriage. 

It follows, from the principles here asserted, that the require- 
ments thus expressed in the English marriage service are to be 
understood in all cases of Christian marriage as necessarily 
contained in that Divine institution of marriage, which alone 
Christian men and women are at liberty to adopt. But although 
these requirements are to be understood in all cases of Christian 
marriage, they are not always, and indeed not commonly, 
expressed in the actual forms of marriage contract. 

Thus in the Roman Ritual the only expressions of consent 
are these following :1— 

«ἘΝ, Wilt thou accept N. here present to thy lawful wife according 
to the rite of Holy Mother Church ? 

fh ΤΠ 1} 

“N., Wilt thou accept N. here present to thy lawful husband 
according to the rite of Holy Mother Church ? 

ἘΦ νη}: 





1 Rituale Romanum, in Schneider, Manuale Sacerdotum, Coloniae, 1877, 
Ῥ. 639. In the Rev. C. W. Wood’s Marriage (Manchester 1887) which gives 
the ritual presumably as used in England (p. 288), the consent as above is 
followed by the words of betrothal: ‘‘I, N., take thee, N., to be my wedded 
wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, 
for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part, if Holy Church will 
it permit ; and thereto I plight thee my troth.” This appears to be a close 
adaptation of the Sarum Ordo ad faciendum sponsalia, 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY DEE 


Upon these statements of consent the priest at once joins 
the hands of the parties, and pronounces “I unite you in 
marriage. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Thus in the Roman Ritual nothing 
is specified with regard to the matter of the contract beyond 
the general statement that each accepts the other as wife or 
husband according to the rite of Holy Mother Church. 

In the Eastern Churches, which employ the Constantinopolitan 
rite, the expression of consent is not made by the parties them- 
selves at all, but by the priest on their behalf, the parties by 
their presence and acquiescence being understood to consent. 
The formula employed at the betrothal for each of the parties 
is as follows: 


“The servant of Gop N. is espoused to the servant of Gop N. in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
Amen.”! 


Similarly at the final marriage ceremony or coronation : 


“The servant of Gop N. is crowned to the servant of Gop N. 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 
Amen.”? 


Thus the forms in most common use alike in East and West 
do not specify any particular obligations of the marriage bond. 
Such particular obligations are left to be gathered from other 
sources. The tradition has evidently been maintained that all 
which is required in the form of marriage is some expression of 
consent It need not necessarily be expressed in writing; 
it need not necessarily be expressed orally by the parties; 
it is sufficient if by some unmistakeable sign, as by their 
presence at and acquiescence in a form of marriage pro- 
nounced by the priest, they make it clear that they accept 
the status of marriage. This is, in fact, as we have already 
noticed, the teaching of the Western Canon Law where 





1 Euchologion (quoted in Zhishman, p. 692): ““᾿Αῤῥαβωνίζεται ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ 
Θεοῦ (ὁ δεῖνα) τὴν δούλην τοῦ Θεοῦ (τὴν δεῖνα) εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Ilarpdsy καὶ τοῦ 


“γιοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνευματος. ᾿Αμήν.᾽ 
2 Euchologion (Ib.): ““ Στέφεται ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ (ὁ δεῖνα) τὴν δούλην τοῦ Θεοῦ 


ζΖζ ΕΣ] 


(τὴν δεῖνα), εἰς τὸ ὅνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ τοῦ Ὑιοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος, ᾿Αμήν. 


(iii) The 
Eastern 
Eucho- 
logion. 


Van Espen 
on consent. 


Consider- 
able 
difference 
of opinion. 


1:1) HOLY MATRIMONY 


unaffected by the Tridentine restrictions. It is the teaching 
of the English law prior to the passing of Lord Hardwicke’s 
Act. It is the teaching of the Scotch law at the present day. 
This section may be concluded with a quotation to the same 
effect from Van Espen, the great Flemish canonist: 


“What Eugenius IV. says, in his Decretum pro Armenis cited 
above, viz., that ‘the efficient cause of matrimony is ordinarily 
mutual consent expressed by words of present application,’ is in no 
wise to be so understood as if there could at any time be any other 
efficient cause of matrimony except mutual consent, but (the meaning 
is) that this consent is not always to be expressed by words; and so 
the word ordinarily has reference, not to the mutual consent, but to 
the expression of the consent ‘by words of present application.’ 

“For as in other contracts consent may be expressed and manifested, 
not by words only, but also by signs and nods (signis et nutibus), 
similarly also in the matrimonial contract, as is said in Cap. 23 
De Sponsalibus, where the pontiff replies that a deaf mute can 
contract marriage, ‘Cum quod verbis non potest, signis valeat 
declarare.’”! 


(4) Js the copula carnalis merely an ordinary accompaniment 
of the marriage state, or 18 there no marriage state without τέ ? 

There is considerable difference of opinion as to whether 
the copula is of the essence of Christian marriage or not. 
Theologians of the Roman obedience for the most part decide 
in their books of theory that the copula is not essential; but in 
all practical cases there is an equal consensus that where the 
copula has not supervened, nullity of marriage may be declared 
by proper authority. Thus any case of matrimonium ratum 


non consummatum may be declared null on occasion, and the 


irremediable impotence of either party is invariably sufficient 
for a declaration of nullity. In practice therefore the copula 
is held to be essential. In the East it is also common to teach 
that the copula is not essential, while impotence is recognised 
as full justification for terminating a marriage union. Such 
termination is in the Eastern system spoken of as divorce 
rather than as annulment; but the provision that the ineapacity 
must have been continuous from the time of the solemnization 





1 Van Espen, tit. xii. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 11}. 


shews that the termination is recognised as essentially an 
annulment, though formally a divorce. In England for the 
same cause marriages are pronounced null. 

Difficult as the question is, it is a question the answer to The — 
which is of the utmost importance to the right understanding pe, 
of the Divine laws of marriage, and it is a question which ian 
demands a definite answer one way or the other. Either the 
copula is not essential to the marriage union, or it is. Either, 
notwithstanding the fact that the cases are rare where it does 
not find place, the copula is yet but an accident of marriage, or 


else there is no such thing as a marriage without it. 


Ga.) Holy Scripture. 


Holy Scripture appears to recognize the copula as the peculiar κι) poly 
characteristic feature of marriage. Ina former chapter (ch. III.) Scripture. 
various passages were cited which went to prove that the copula 
was part of the original institution in a state of innocence. 

Gen. ii. 23, 24: 

23 And Adam said, This 7s now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : 
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 


24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave 
unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 


Here in connection with the method of woman’s formation it 
is stated that henceforth husband and wife are to be “ one flesh.” 
In the parallel passages, 8. Matthew xix. 4-6, 5. Mark x. 6-9, 
our Lord appears to assign the copula to the Divine institution. 


S. Matthew xix. 4-6: 


4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which 
made them at the beginning made them male and female, 

5. And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh ? 

6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God 
hath joined together, let not man put asunder, 


S. Mark x. 6-9: 


6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 


7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his 
wife ; 


8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but 
one flesh. 


9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 
I 


114 HOLY MATRIMONY 


These passages are very significant, not merely as regards the 
character of marriage in the state of innocence, but no less so 
as regards the character of Christian marriage. If the copula 
was an essential feature of the original Divine institution, it 
must be no less so of Christian marriage, which is no new 
institution, but the original marriage of Eden taken up into a 
new hallowing. All that was essential in Eden must be essential 
now. And it is difficult to see how words could state much 
more plainly the essential character of the copula than is in 
fact done by the words of our Lord. Gop, He says, “at the 
beginning made them male and female.” “For this cause,” 
that is to say, because of this Divine ordering, “shall a man 
leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they 
twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, 
but one flesh.” Here is the prominent consequence, the great 
characteristic feature which results from the Divine ordering. 
It is at this pomt that the solemn prohibition comes in that 
man is not to meddle with the work of Gop. “What therefore 
Gop hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” It is in 
one flesh that Gop hath joined them together; it is that one 
flesh that man may not put asunder. Is there not here a clear 
expression of the essential character of the copula ? 

5. Paul repeats the teaching of our Lord in his Epistle to 
the Ephesians. 


Τρ}. v. 28-31: 


28 Οὕτως ὀφείλουσιν οἱ ἄνδρες aya- 
πᾶν τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας, ὡς τὰ ἑαυτῶν 
σώματα. ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα 
ἑαυτὸν ἀγαπᾶ" 

29 Οὐδεὶς γάρ ποτε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σάρ- 
κα ἐμίσησεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκτρέφει καὶ θάλπει 
αὐτὴν, καθὼς καὶ ὁ Κύριος τὴν ἐκκλη- 
σίαν" 

90 Ὅτι μέλη ἐσμὲν τοῦ σώματος αὐ- 
τοῦ, ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν 
ὀστέων αὐτοῦ. ᾿ 

81 ᾿Αντὲ τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρω- 
πος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα, 
καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα 
αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα 
μίαν.᾽ 


28 So ought men to love their wives 
as their own bodies. He that loveth 
his wife loveth himself. 


29 For no man ever yet hated his | 


own flesh; butnourisheth and cherisheth 
it, even as the Lord the church : 


30 For we are members of his body, 
of his flesh, and of his bones. 


31 For this cause shall a man leave 
his father and mother, and shall be 
joined unto his wife, and they two 
shall be one flesh. 


_— νυ 


ἔν 68 Wie Rie iE ia Δὲ. te Bn ti 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 110 


In the first Epistle to the Corinthians he expounds the phrase 
“one flesh” as being equivalent to the copula. 


1 Corinthians vi. 15, 16. 


15 Οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι TA σώματα ὑμῶν 
μέλη Χριστοῦ ἐστίν ; ἄρας οὖν τὰ μέλη 
τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ποιήσω πόρνης μέλη; μὴ 
γένοιτο. 


16 Ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ὁ κολλώμενος 

cn f \ na pe: ov \ > 

τῇ πόρνῃ ἕν σῶμά ἐστιν ; “᾿Ἐίσονται yap, 
φησὶν, ‘oi δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν"᾽ 


15 Know ye not that your bodies 
are the members of Christ? shall I 
then take the members of Christ, and 
make them the members of an harlot ? 
God forbid. 

16 What? know ye not that he which 
is joined to an harlot is one body? for 
two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 


When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that 
“marriage 1s honourable in all, and the bed undefiled,” he 
employs a form of parallelism frequent in Holy Scripture, in 
which the second statement repeats the first, while throwing 
stress upon some characteristic feature. The “bed undefiled” 
is the great characteristic of marriage, in connection with which 
it is necessary to affirm that marriage is honourable. 


Hebrews xiii. 4: 


4 Τίμιος ὁ γάμος ἐν πᾶσι καὶ ἡ κοίτη 4 Marriage is honourable in all, and 


the bed undefiled. 


ἀμίαντος. 


On the whole it seems fair to sum up that Holy Scripture 
strongly countenances the view that the copula is essential to 
the Divine institution of marriage. There is no passage of 
Holy Seripture which can be fairly construed to imply that 
there can be marriage without the copula, unless it be the 
mention of the Blessed Theotokos as the wife of S. Joseph, a 
subject which will be presently considered. 


Gi.) The Church ὧν History. 


The early ages of Christianity do not shew this question (i.) The 
very definitely formulated, either for the purposes of doctrinal ae 
teaching, or for that of the practice of the episcopal tribunals. 
Certain passages of the Christian writers bear upon it; and it 
may be worth while here briefly to pass in review what may be 
gathered from the writers of the first five centuries. 

I 2 


116 HOLY MATRIMONY 


A. The First Five Centurtes. 


A. The AUTHORITIES IN THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES ON THE ESSENTIAL 


First Five CHARACTER OF THE COPULA. 
Centuries. 


S. CLemMeNT oF ALEXANDRIA. 
Stromata, lib. ii. cap. 23.1 
Γάμος μὲυ οὖν ἐστι σύνοδος ἀνδρὸς Kat γυναικός ἡ πρώτη κατὰ νόμον, 
ἐπὶ γνησίων τέκνων σπορᾷ. 
Paedagogus, lib. ii. 6. 10. 
Nv / \ x » Ἶ / nN / > Δ ΕΛ 
ἐυνουσιας δὲ TOV καιρὸν μόνοις τοις γεγαμήῆκοσιν απολελειπται 


A A ‘ ΄ὔ ἈΝ ε ΄ὔ , Nee > M4 
σκοπειν᾽ τοις δὲ γεγαμῆκοσι OKOTOS 7) παιδοποιία" τέλος δὲ 7) εὐτεκνία. 


THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 
Τρ 8. 

Οὐκοῦν ὁ γάμος τίμιος καὶ σεμνὸς, καὶ ἡ τῶν παίδων γένεσις, καθαρά. 

οὐδὲν γὰρ κακὸν ἐν καλῷ ὑπάρχει. 
S. AMBROSE. 
De Institutione Virginis, lib. 1. ο. 6.? 

Cum enim initiatur conjugium tune conjugii nomen adsciscitur ; 
non enim defloratio virginitatis facit conjugium, sed pactio conjugalis. 
Denique cum jungitur puella, conjugium est, non cum _ virill 
admixtione cognoscitur. 

iba cape ie 

Dicit enim ad matrem: Mulier, ecce filius tuus. Dicit et ad 
discipulum: ece, mater tua. Ipse est discipulus, cui mater 
commendatur. Q@uomodo marito uxorem tolleret, si fuerat Maria 
mixta conjugio, aut usum tori conjugalis agnoverat ἵ 


Epistola 60 ad Paternum.* 
Si quis desponsata sibi et tradita utatur, conjugium vocat: qui 
alienae expugnat pudorem, adulterium facit. 


S. CHRyYsostTom. 
Homilia V. in Matthaeum.° 

Ki yap ἔγνω αὐτὴν, καὶ ev τάξει γυναικὸς εἶχε, TOS ὡς ἀπροστάτευτον 
αὐτὴν καὶ οὐδένα ἔχουσαν τῷ μαθητῃ παρατίθεται, καὶ κελεύει αὐτῷ 
εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἀυτὴν λαβεῖν ; 

S. JEROME. 
Commentary on ὃ. Matthew i. 17.° 

Virum Mariae, de qua natus est Jesus, qui vocatur Christus. Cum 
virum audieris, suspicio tibi non subeat nuptiarum; sed recordare con- 
suetudinis Scripturarum, quod sponsi viri, et sponsae vocentur uxores. 





1 Migne’s Ed. p. 1085. 2 Ibid. tom. ii. p. 316. 3 Ibid. tom. ii. p. 318. 
4 Ibid. p. 1188. © Field’s Ed. vol. i. p. 65. © Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 28. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 117 


The extracts given above appear to shew that on the whole 
the Church of the first five centuries regarded the copula as a 
necessary feature of marriage. 5. Clement of Alexandria 
regards marriage-as “a cohabitation of husband and wife for 
the procreation of lawful children,’ and he says that to the 
married the σκοπὸς is the procreation of children, while the 
τέλος is to have excellent children. Apparently the σκοπὸς is 
the purpose essentially contained in the institution of marriage, 
while the τέλος is the high special aim of the individual 
parent. 


S. Clement 


of 
Alexandria. 


The Apostolical Constitutions teach that “marriage is The 


honourable and chaste (σεμνὸς), and the begetting of children 
pure; for nothing evil subsists (ὑπάρχει) in the excellent.” 
The copula then subsists in marriage, or is part and parcel of it. 

5. Ambrose, in a much-quoted passage of the De Lnstitutione 
Virginas, says that “not the deflowering of a virgin, but the con- 
jugal pact makes a marriage,” and that a wife is recognised as 
such from the time of the formal joining together. In the 
very next chapter of the same treatise, however, he uses the 
remarkable argument, also used by 8. Chrysostom, that if the 
Blessed Mother had been really 8. Joseph’s wife, our Lord 
would not have taken her away from him at the crucifixion to 
commit her to 8. John. ‘“ How could He have taken the wife 
from the husband, if Mary had been united in marriage (mixta 
conjugio), or had known the usus of the marriage bed?” [Ὁ is 
clear therefore that if toS. Ambrose there could be no marriage 
without the conjugal pact, it was equally impossible to recog- 
nise the full marriage character where the copula had not found 
place. Consent and the copula are both essentials. So in the 
Epistle to Paternus (Ep. 60) he says that where the copula 
follows espousal and the formal delivery of the bride, marriage 
is effected. 


Apostolical 
Consti- 
tutions. 


S.Ambrose, 


It has been mentioned that 8. Chrysostom employs the same 5. Chry- 


argument as 8. Ambrose to shew that the Blessed Virgin was 
not fully 8. Joseph’s wife. “For if he (ὃ. Joseph) had known 
her, and had possessed her in the condition (τάξει) of a wife, 
how does (our Lord) commit her to the disciple as unprotected 
and having no one, and command him to take her into his own 


sostom. 


S. Jerome. 


59. 
Augustine, 


118 HOLY MATRIMONY 


charge?” In 5. Chrysostom’s view therefore where the copula 
has not found place the woman is not ἐν τάξει γυναικὸς, that 1s 
to say, in the position, condition, or office of a wife. 

S. Chrysostom is very commonly quoted as using the ex- 
pression, matrimonium non facit coitus, sed voluntas, but the 
words occur in the Opus Imperfectum in Matthacum, which 15 
not S. Chrysostom’s. 

S. Jerome says that the Blessed Virgin and 8. Joseph were 
related to each other not as husband and wife but as betrothed 
persons. “When thou hearest of a husband, let no suspicion 
of the nuptial union occur to thee; but remember the custom 
of the Scriptures, by which men betrothed are termed husbands, 
and women betrothed are termed wives.” 

S. Augustine, unlike 8. Ambrose, 5. Chrysostom, and 8. 
Jerome, is anxious to maintain the entire propriety of the word 
wife as applied to the Blessed Virgin. While maintaining the 
perpetual virginity of the mother of the Lord, he asserts that 
there is no deception in the words of the angel, “ Fear not to 
take unto thee Mary thy wife.” From this and similar passages 
it would appear to follow that the copula is not, according to 
S. Augustine, essential to the marriage union. In the treatise 
against Juhan he says distinctly “that there can be husband 
and wife (conjuges) without the bodily union.” Yet in the 
same treatise he remarks that “the truth of nuptials consists 
not alone, as thou ravest, in the cohabitation of male and 
female, although without that nuptials cannot procreate sons.” 
The word alone here seems to indicate that while the copula 
did not constitute the whole of the “truth” or essential 
character of marriage, it did form a part of it. It may be that 
Ὁ. Augustine would not have failed to recognise a grave and 
essential difference between the status with the copula and 
the status without the copula; and that the argument which 
insists on the term w/e for the Blessed Virgin is in fact an 
argument rather about words than about things. 5. Augustine, 
however, is commonly regarded as the chief supporter among 
the fathers of the view that the copula is not of the essence of 
marriage. 

The review which has now been made goes to shew that, 








OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 119 


with the exception of the great name of S. Augustine, the During the 
: ς ‘ ih oe 5 first five 
testimony of the first five centuries of Christianity, like that centuries 
of Holy Scripture, maintains the essential character of the jhe copwa 
copula. essential. 


B. The Middle Ages. 


It is hardly of importance to pursue this subject during the ps. The 
period from the fifth to the eleventh centuries, Passing these pees 
centuries by, and coming now to that period of Church history 
which embraces the codification of the canon law by Gratian, 
and the theology of the schoolmen, there becomes apparent the 
most marked contrast between (a) theory and (ὁ) practice. In 
theory there is, speaking generally, a tendency to affirm that Great 
the copula is not of the essence of Christian marriage. The contrast 


between 
tendency is, however, by no means universal. In the practice theory and 


tice. 
of the courts, on the other hand, the essential character of the ον 
copula may be said to be everywhere admitted. 

(a) Theory. (ay Theor 


In considering the teaching of the schoolmen, it is perhaps (a) The 
less important to trace the tendency of opinion on this subject, Schoolme. 
from the historical point of view, than to examine the grounds 
on which the view that the copula is not of the essence of 
marriage was adopted by some prominent theologians. These 
appear to have been mainly three: (1) that there was no copula 
in Paradise; (2) that the Blessed Virgin Mary was a wife; and 
(3) that the copula is necessarily shameful. 

(1) S. Thomas Aquinas decides? that the copula is not of the x, The 
integrity of marriage, considered in itself, chiefly, it would seem, ee 
on the ground that, although there was marriage in Paradise, 
the copula found no place there. But, it is argued, the marriage 
in Paradise was complete, therefore the copula cannot be 
essential. 

The remarkable statement with regard to the marriage of 
Paradise, that “ibi non fuit carnalis copula,” appears to be due 
to an impression that the present method of human generation 


1 Summa, par. 111. supp. Quaest. 42, art. 4. 


z. The 
marriage 
of the 
B.V.M. 


120 HOLY MATRIMONY 


was a result of the Fall It is true that in the primal curse 
Gop said to the woman, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ; 
and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over 
thee.” It is also true that there is no record of any conception 
or birth in the unfallen state, and that the first record following 
upon the narrative of the expulsion from Eden is, that “the man 
knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, 
I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.”? These 
passages, however, in no way exclude the copula from the 
original institution of marriage as ordained by Gop in the state 
of innocence, while the passages quoted in chapter III. indicate 
plainly that the Divine institution made express provision for 
the copula. 8. Thomas’s premise cannot therefore be admitted, 
and his conclusion, so far as it is based upon the premise, falls. 
It should be noticed that while 8. Thomas concludes that the 
copula is not of the essence of marriage considered in itself, he 
holds that it may be spoken of as essential in a secondary sense 
as being required for the working of marriage (secundum per- 
fectionem secundam, quee consistit in operatione). 

(2) The most common argument, however, is the argument 
that, inasmuch as the Blessed Virgin Mary was a wife, the copula 
cannot be of the essence of marriage. It is an argument which 
had been employed by 8. Augustine, who says, “ Mary is called 
wife from the first faith of her espousals, although Joseph had 
not known her, neither was to know her by sexual intercourse ; 
yet the title of wife, which had remained, was not mendacious, 
even where there had not been, nor was to be, any union of the 
flesh.”? It has been seen that this quotation may have repre- 
sented S$. Augustine’s views only from one side; but the 





1 This view is often attributed to S. Augustine, but, incorrectly as the following 
passages shew: ‘‘ Quanquam enim jam emissi de paradiso convenisse et genuisse 
commemorentur ; tamen non video quid prohibere potuerit, ut essent eis etiam 
in paradiso honorabiles nuptiae et torus immaculatus.”—De Genesi ad litteram, 
lib. ix. 6. 8. (Migne’s Ed. tom, ili. p. 395.) ““ Cur ergo non coierunt, nisi cum 
exlissent de paradiso? Cito responderi potest, Quia mox creata muliere, prius 
quam coirent, facta est illa transgressio, cujus merito in mortem destinati, etiam 
de loco illius felicitatis exierunt.”—De Grenesi ad litteram, lib. ix. c. 4. (Migne’s 
Ed. tom. iv. p. 395.) 

Ὁ Gen: τὴ * ΚΝ, Augustine. De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, cap. 11. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 121 


argument is one which has been constantly brought forward. 
With the spirit of it there is much scope for sympathy ; it 
seems indisputable that the Blessed Theotokos should have all 
the ordinary perfections of the state in which she was found 
worthy to be Theotokos. Yet surely it was only possible for 
her to be Theotokos as being S. Joseph’s wife in an imperfect 
sense. The perfection of her state as the chosen of Gop 
excluded in fact the perfection of her state as the wife of 
S. Joseph. It need not, indeed, be said that the term wife is 
therefore “mendacious” as applhed to her, as ὃ. Augustine’s 
argument suggests. Although it does not in her case connote 
all that is commonly connoted by it, there is no other word 
which we are prepared to use in its place to indicate the relation 
of the mother of the Lord to the appointed partner and _ pro- 
tector of her early womanhood. But the entire perfection of 
the human wife in her relation to her husband involves more 
than the Blessed Theotokos could give. 

It should not be overlooked in connexion with this 
argument that the Blessed Virgin and 8. Joseph were united 
by a contract under the Jewish and not under the Christian 
law. That there was no failure of intention in the mind of 
either, whether on the point of indissolubility or on that of 
exclusive fidelity, may well be assumed without dispute, but 
that neither of these points was necessarily involved in the 
contract as externally ratified by the Mosaic law is matter 
of certainty. When, therefore, it is argued that the expression 
of marital consent must be sufficient to constitute a marriage, 
because no more is forthcoming in the case of the perfect 
marriage of the Blessed Virgin and 8. Joseph, it must be 
replied that in the case of that marriage the expression of 
consent itself appears to have been defective as being subject 
to the lax provisions of the Mosaic code. Further, whatsoever 
might or might not be contained in the conjugal consent, it was 
not possible that in any case, even in this, Holy Matrimony 
could have its true perfection so long as man was in the state 
of the Fall, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit had not 
yet come. Granting, for the sake of argument, all that may be 
asked about the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit upon 


3. The 
shame of 
the copula. 


(8) The 
Canonists. 


LZ HOLY MATRIMONY 


the Blessed Mother, how, in the case of 8. Joseph, could the 
perfection of any human estate be found in anticipation of 
the redemption? Was it not true of him at that time as 
it was true of 8S. John the Baptist, that “he that is least 
in the kingdom of heaven” was “greater than he” ? It follows 
that the marriage of 8S. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary 
was not Christian marriage, and the argument from the 
perfection of their marriage therefore falls. 

(9) The third principal argument which has prevailed is 
derived from the sense that the copula is too much encom- 
passed about with shame to admit of its forming an essential 
part of a holy ordinance. The feeling is no new one. The 
writer of the epistle to the Hebrews was doubtless dealing with 
it when he taught that “marriage is honourable in all, and the 
bed undefiled.” It must have been because of this feeling that 
the Apostolical Constitutions laid down that “marriage is 
honourable and chaste, and the begetting of children pure, for 
nothing evil subsists in the excellent.”1 A long array of 
passages illustrating this very intelligible shrinking might 
easily be collected. It is much found in the literature of 
the Western Church of the Middle Ages, which has suffered 
ereatly in its theology of marriage from the fact that its writers 
have been almost invariably celibates. With regard to the feeling 
it may be fully admitted that the “shadow of a shame” must 
always be found even in the Holy Marriage of a race no longer 
innocent, although redeemed ; but marriage, however stained by 
the Fall, is still the same institution which Gop ordained in 
Paradise, where shame was not, and if the copula was of its 
essence then, it is of its essence now. 

The teaching that the copula is not an essential of marriage 
has been adopted by most doctrinal writers of the later Western 
Church. The arguments adduced are almost invariably those 
which have just been considered. 

The theologians, however, are not the only teachers on the 
subject of the requirements of marriage. It is indeed a subject on 
which their teaching is apt to be rather academic than practical. 
For many hundred years past in the West the real treatment 





1 Apostolical Constitutions, lib. vi. c. 28. 


ae 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 123 


of actual difficulties and the determination of the practice 
of the Church in such matters has been rather in the hands 
of the canon lawyers. As will presently be shewn, the practice 
of the courts has invariably been to treat the copula as 
essential; but the canonists no less than the theologians have 
their theoretic teaching as well as their actual practice, and 
there has been considerable diversity in the theoretic teaching 
even of the canonists. Gratian and his early successors may 
be said to have maintained that the copula was essential; 
in later times it has been more usual to adopt the contrary 
view. Gratian referring to the statements of the Opus 
Imperfectum and of S. Ambrose thus paraphrases: “The 
copula without the will to contract marriage and the deflower- 
ment of virginity without the conjugal pact does not constitute 
marriage, but the antecedent will to contract marriage and the 
conjugal pact bring it about that the woman in the deflower- 
ment of her virginity or in the copula is said nwbere, to marry 
the man or to celebrate a marriage.”' Gratian therefore holds 
that the conjugal consent and the copula are both of the 
integrity of marriage in the full sense of the word. In other 
words, he recognises a grave difference between the status of 
those who are only united by consent, and that of those 
who have consummated their marriage. In another passage, 
while allowing the word conjugiwm to be applied to either 
status, he draws a distinction destined to become well known 
between conjugium initiatum, marriage initiated, and conjugium 
ratum, marriage ratified. “It is to be understood,’ he says, 
“that marriage is initiated by betrothal, and perfected by the 
copula. Whence there is conjugiwm between a man and a 
woman betrothed, but it is conjugium initiatum, marriage 
initiated; between those who are united by the copula it is 
conjugium ratum, marriage ratified.” 


1 Gratian’s Decretwm (dicta to c. 45. C. 27, qu. 2), ‘‘ Coitus sine voluntate 
contrahendi matrimonium et defloratio virginitatis sine pactione conjugali 
non facit matrimonium, sed praecedens voluntas contrahendi matrimonium 
et pactio conjugalis facit, ut mulier in defloratione suae virginitatis vel in coitu 
dicatur nubere viro vel nuptias celebrare.” 

1 Gratian’s Decretum (dicta to c. 84. C. 27, qu. 2.) ‘‘sciendum est, quod 
conjugium desponsatione initiatur, commixtione perficitur. Unde inter sponsum 
et sponsam conjugium est, sed initiatwm; inter copulatos est conjugium 
ratum.” 


Consider- 
able 
diversity 
of theory. 


Gratian. 


Conjugium 
initiatum 
and 
conjugium 
ratum. 


(b) Practice. 


124 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The enormous influence of the Decretwm will justify this 
notice of the teaching of Gratian, but it is hardly necessary to 
follow the history of opinion on this subject in any detail. 
Many, probably most, modern canonists have held that the 
copula is not essential to marriage, while at the same time 
a distinction 1s usually made between marriages which have 
been consummated and those which have not been consum- 
mated. They are described as different kinds of marriage. In 
connexion with the attitude of those who assert that the copula 
is not essential, it 1s well to remember (1) that the influence of 
the Roman civil law upon the canonists of the middle ages 
amounted to an ever-present tyranny, the old maxim of the 
civil law, Nuptias non concubitus sed consensus facit, being in full 
acceptance; and (2) that for the purposes of legal practice, 
however essential the copula may otherwise be, it 1s necessary 
to select some demonstrable act as the sufficient evidence of 
marriage. The different character induced by the copula is, how- 
ever, seldom entirely overlooked. Thus Van Espen remarks: 

“Although matrimonium ratum is true marriage even before con- 
summation, and nothing is wanting to it for the true character 
(ad rationem) of marriage, yet, notwithstanding, it receives by the 
consummation a certain perfection as regards its significance, and the 
bond of marriage is rendered more indissoluble, as is shewn below in 
the title De Divortiis,”+ 

(ὁ) Practice. 

Far more important, however, in a matter of this sort than 
any amount of theory, even when supported by the greatest 
names, 1s the actual practice of the Church. If, as a matter of 
fact, when the theories of teachers were brought to the touch- 
stone of practice, they vanished away, their value as Christian 
tradition sinks to a very low level. And it may be said to be 
the case that when the theory that the copula was not of the 
essence of marriage was so brought to the test, it was found 
thus to vanish away. 





1 Van Espen. ‘‘Quamvis matrimonium ratwm etiam ante consummationem 
sit verum matrimonium: nihilque ipsi desit ad rationem matrimonii; nihilo- 
minus per consummationem accipit quandam perfectionem, quantum ad signifi- 
cationem ; redditurque vinculum matrimonii magis indissolubile, ut infra titulo 
De Divortiis ostenditur.” (Jus Heclesiasticum Universum, tit. xii. c. 4.) 


—— νυν ων 


i i> τ Ἰὼ νὰ eee ee wet 


~—=_-- 


—— 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 125 


The practical test occurred in connexion with the doctrine of 
the indissolubility of Christian marriage. The Church held 
Christian marriage to be indissoluble; but was an uncon- 
summated marriage in such sort Christian marriage that it 
could not be dissolved? In the ordinary run of marriages 
the question of course would never arise, but it might do so 
in two sets of cases. It would arise where there was physical 
incapacity, whether from insufficient age or from other cause ; 
and it would arise in cases where the expression of the contract 
was removed from the consummation by some length of time, 
and the parties, for whatsoever reason, became in the interval 
disinclined to fulfil the contract. (a.) 

(a) Physical Incapacity. ream 
(1) Lmpediment of Impotence. According to the Roman law, xs. Impe- 

the only adult persons who were incapacitated on this ground pre ἢ ς 
from effecting a legal marriage contract were those eunuchs The Roman 
(castratv) who had been the subjects of a surgical privation.? ae 
Even in the case of other eunuchs (spadones, thivbiar) there was sed Ἧ 
no legal incapacity, apparently because their condition was 
not matter of notoriety.” Physical impotence was, however, 
always regarded as an obvious ground of divorce, and in a 
system where divorce was of the readiest application nothing 
more was needed. 

The Christian sense of the unrighteousness of ordinary The 
divorce led, however, to a higher estimate of the status of ari 
marriage than could be held under the old Roman view, that marriage 
the status stood or fell with the maintenance of mutual consent. Yiseoluble. 
With this higher view of the status of marriage came neces- 
sarily a closer examination of the conditions essential to it, and 
it is not surprising therefore to find that Justinian, who under 
Christian influence introduced into the Roman law many 
limitations of divorce not previously accepted, should have 
maintained that impotence was a legitimate ground of divorce. 

His legislation on this subject was accepted without scruple by 
the Eastern Church, and remains embodied in its canon law 
to the present day. At first Justinian required that a period of Justinian, 
two years from thé marriage should elapse before a divorce 





1 Digest, xxiii. 3, 39. 2 Tbid. 


The West 


Hinkmar. 


The 
Canonists. 


126 HOLY MATRIMONY 


should be admitted on this ground. This was in a constitution 
addressed to Mennas, Patriarch of Constantinople in A.p, 528.4 
In the 22nd Novel, however, which was published in A.D. 536, 
he altered this provision, remarking that since the publication 
of the constitution it had been found that men who had shewn 
themselves incapable for two years sometimes resumed their 
physical powers later.2 In the Novel, therefore, he requires for 
a divorce on this ground that three years of incapacity shall 
have succeeded the celebration of the marriage. It is in this 
form that Justinian’s enactment was embodied in the Nomo- 
canones, and that it remains at the present time a law of 
the Eastern Churches.? 

It should be noticed that the three years’ period must be at 
the commencement of the married lfe, and before any copula 
has found place. Once the copula effected, incapacity subse- 
quently supervening is no ground of divorce. It will be seen, 
therefore, that the term divorce is really misleading as applied 
to the essential character of the union. Before the law, since 
an outward ceremony had been taken as sufficient evidence for 
the constitution of marriage, so an outward divorce was neces- 
sary to dissolve the bond which the law had bound. But from 
the point of view of the union considered in itself and apart 
from the law, it had simply never become a marriage, and 
therefore, strictly speaking, there could be no divorce. In the 
nature of things the union was null and void. It was this 
essential nullity which justified the provision of legal divorce ; 
and the enactments, in requiring that the years of incapacity 
should not have been preceded by the copula in marriage, did in 
fact, though not admittedly, base upon this essential nullity. 

In the West much the same results were at least ultimately 
arrived at. Hinkmar of Rheims, who is very clear on the 
whole subject of the copula, lays down distinctly that there is 
no divorce in a case of impotence inasmuch as the marriage is 
never completed, and is therefore simply null from the first. 
Gratian,? and after him Roland (Alexander III.), and several 





τ: God. γι 115 10. ΞΟ. 22, cf 0: 

3 Zhishman, Hherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 759, quoting Photius, 
Nomocan. xiii. 4, and other authorities. 

4 Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 335. 5 Decretum, C. 33, qu. 1. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY ear 


other glossators take substantially the same line With the 
ruling of Alexander III, that a desponsatio de praesenti was to pepe 
be accounted a sufficient marriage, and therefore ordinarily 
indissoluble,? came the result that the marriage of an impotent 
person who had been united by the desponsatio de praesent was 
accounted to be marriage. Alexander, however, conceded that, 
if such were the general custom of the Gallican Church, the 
marriage tie might be dissolved on the ground of impotence, 
notwithstanding the ruling which gave such force to the 
desponsatio de praesentt.® 

Some three centuries later (22 June, 1587) Sixtus V. re- Sixtus v. 
affirmed the nullity of the marriage of eunuchs.4 

The present Canon law practice of the Roman obedience, Present 
according to Von Schulte, is as follows :— aie 

1. If after an examination by medical experts there is an Church. 
unanimous opinion that the impotence is natural and lasting 
(whether absolute or relative), and that it is externally recog- 
nisable as such, and further that it is not removable by medical 
art at least without danger to life, the marriage may be declared 
null without further ado, a further cohabitation having indeed 
become unseemly in the face of such a fact, and that now a 
matter of public notoriety. 

2. If the medical testimony is unanimous that the impotence 
is beyond doubt, but that its diagnosis rests not on external 
but on internal grounds, an oath is required from both the 
parties that the copula has not taken place, an oath being also 
taken from seven relatives or friends that to the best of their 
knowledge and belief this statement is true. Failing seven 
such attestations there must be at least two. Nullity of 
marriage may then be declared. 

ὁ. If neither the certainty of actual observation nor yet 
moral certainty is forthcoming, or if the medical experts are 
not agreed, and the possibility of collusion has not been 
removed by other subsequent examination, the experiment of 
three years’ cohabitation must be tried as by the law of 


1 Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 845. 2 Ibid. Ὁ 191. 3 Ibid. p. 347. 
* Constitutio Sixti V., ‘‘Quum frequenter” (Bullarium Romanum, tom. iv., 
p. 4, quoted by Von Schulte, Handbuch des Katholischen Eherechts, p. 81). 


The 
Church of 
England. 


The copula 
is thus 
treated as 
essential. 


2. Impedi- 
ment of 
Age. 


Justinian. 


128 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Justinian. After the expiration of the three years, if on 
further trial is thought desirable, nullity may be declared on 
the confirmation of the impotence by oath of both parties, or 
by oath of the complaining party with his attestors.1 

The practice of the English Church in the matter of physical 
incapacity is entirely in accord with that of the rest of 
Christendom. Theodore’s Penitential, indeed, went so far as to 
sanction divorce with re-inarriage for supervenient incapacity,” 
but, as will be seen in chapter VIL, this laxity was not long 
suffered. Where, however, the copula had not found place 
there was never any question but that the marriage was 
essentially null2 In the middle ages the ordinary canon law 
of the West was in marriage cases the rule in England. Since 
the Reformation there has been here no change, physical 
incapacity being always held adequate ground for a declaration 
of nullity.* 

Thus the continuous practice of the Christian Church has 
been to withhold or to withdraw sanction from any marriage in 
which either party has been certainly impotent from the time 
of solemnization onwards. Sometimes the withdrawing of 
sanction has been termed a divorce, sometimes more correctly 
described as a declaration of nullity of marriage; but neither 
in the East nor in the West have marriages been allowed to 
stand in the face of proved physical incapacity. Such action 
can only be justified on the ground that physical capacity is 
essential to marriage, and physical capacity can only be 
essential if the completion of the copula is essential. 

(2) Impediment of Age. By the Roman law, which in this 
matter was simply accepted by the Christians of the Empire, 
the age of puberty was regarded as the age from which marriages 
might be made, and before which they were inadmissible. 
Justinian assigned a conventional age as most convenient for 
the practice of the law. Fourteen years in a male and twelve 





1 Von Schulte, Handbuch des Katholischen Eherechts, pp. 98, sqq. 

2 Theodore’s Penitential, xii. 12. (In Haddan and Stubbs, iii. p. 201.) 

3 Ibid. xii. 32. 

4 Phillimore’s Burn’s EHeclesiastical Law, ii. Ὁ. 500... ‘‘impuberty, mal- 
formation, or frigidity ; when the marriage itself was merely void ab initio, and 
the sentence of divorce merely declaratory of its being so.” 


ες Σὲ 


ae 


Se eee 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 129 


in a female were henceforth to indicate for all public purposes 
the attainment of puberty.! These ages were, speaking generally, 
the accepted ages throughout Christendom, at least till quite 
modern times. Leo the Isaurian raised the age to fifteen for the 
man and fourteen for the woman;? but the standard of Justinian 
was soon reverted to, and the age of the Canon law alike in the 
East and in the West is still fourteen for the man and twelve 
for the woman.? The ceremony of betrothal was not so limited, 
as no copula was contemplated by it. By the Roman law 
sponsalza had been admissible from the age of seven. 

The ages indicated were avowedly, as they are obviously, 
chosen as being the approximate ages of physical puberty. 
The Roman Law, which for legal purposes reduced marriage to 
a mere contract, was nevertheless so far controlled by the 
nature of the union as to deny its possibility before the age of 
the copula. The Christian canon law of the middle ages is 
found not only accepting the restriction of the Roman law 
without difficulty, but recognising the essential character of 
the restriction. The Roman law of Justinian accepted the 
age assigned as a final determination of the age for a marriage 
contract. The later Canon law shewed a desire to go behind 


The later 


the assigned ages on occasion, in order to question the natural canon 


fact of which those ages were but the approximate expression. 
The Gloss of the Decretum remarks: “ But if he, who has now 
completed fourteen years, appears to be such an one that he 
can in no wise generate, and he make the contract, does the 
marriage hold? Some say that the marriage holds, but I believe 
the contrary, since neither is there puberty, nor are there found 
in the union the three benefits of matrimony, which are faith, 
offspring, and the sacrament.”* Other similar expressions of 
opinion might be adduced. 

The impediment of age is therefore really nothing more than 
a particular case of the impediment of impotence. It simply 





1 Code v. 60. 8. See too Digest, xxiii. 2. 4. 

2 Zhishman, Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 202, quoting the Kelogue 
ih aE 

° For the East, see Zhishman, Jbid. pp. 202, 203. For the West, see Von 
Schulte, Handbuch der Katholischen Eherechts, pp. 76 sqq. 

* Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 327. The Gloss is onc. 3 x (iv+2). 


K 


Law. 


Puberty 
held to be 
essential. 


Absence of 
copula from 
causes 
other than 
physical 
incapacity. 
(x) 
Contracts 
de praesenti. 


130 HOLY MATRIMONY 


deals with the same fact from a different point of view. It 
was naturally treated under a separate head; but the ground 
of incapacity is essentially the same. It may be noticed that 
the indication of the age of puberty as the necessary limit 
before which actual marriage was inadmissible, made it possible 
to extend some recognition to mere betrothal in the case of 
young children. 

It will be seen at once that the requirement of the age of 
puberty as a condition of marriage is of the highest importance 
in considering the question whether the copula is essential to a 
true marriage or not. It mattered little to the non-Christian 
Roman, because to him there was never anything in the status 
of marriage so far essential that it could not be abrogated by 
mutual consent; but to the Christian, who withheld the hberty 
of divorce, the constituent elements of the indissoluble status 
became of the highest importance. The law of Christendom 
may be said to have unanimously decided that puberty is a 
necessary condition of the indissoluble status. Here, again, it 
is clear that puberty can only be necessary because the copula 
is necessary. 

β. Absence of copula from causes other than physical incapacity. 

(1) Contracts de praesenti. While the action of the Church in 
respect to the impediments of Impotence and Age may be said 


to sufficiently determine the fact that the copula was held to - 


be essential to Christian marriage, there were certain other 
cases in which the principle was disputed. Such were the 
cases in which the contract had not been followed by the 
copula at the time, and in which the parties were desirous of 
rescinding the contract before such consummation was effected. 
All the legal teaching as derived from the Roman Civil Law 
laid down that the contract effected marriage sufficiently. On 
the other hand the teaching of the Christian Church required 
the recognition of Christian marriage as not merely a contract, 
but as an estate which was indissoluble. If, without considering 
what went to constitute the estate of marriage, these two lines 
of teaching were brought abruptly together, there followed the 
result alien alike from the Roman law and from the mind of 
the Christian Church, that a marriage formally contracted was 


ΑΝ κυ. -, 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 19} 


indissoluble, although it had not been consummated. In the 
twelfth century this view obtained considerable favour. Inno- tnocentI1. 
cent 11. (Α.Ρ. 1130-1145) eave expression to it in connexion 

with a case which was submitted to him. “I pronounce,” he 

says, “that, the lawful consent intervening, she is a wife directly 

from that moment in which by spontaneous concession she 
declares herself to be a wife. For it was not a future marriage 

which was promised, but a present marriage was established.”} 

Some twenty years after Innocent II. (A.D. 1159), Alexander alexander 
IIL, who had been already well known as a canonist under the a Pees: 
name of Magister Rolandus, gave the following ruling: “On not 
this matter, however, we reply to your enquiry thus, that if ἜΣ 
between the man and the woman lawful consent de praesenti 
intervene in connexion with the solemnization which is 
commonly observed, that is to say, there being present a priest, 

or even a notary, as is the practice in some places even to the 
present day, and (the consent being expressed) before fit 
witnesses in such sort, that each expressly accepts the other 

with the accustomed words in their mutual consent, each 
saying, ‘I receive thee for my wife,’ or, ‘I receive thee for my 
husband,’ then, whether an oath be interposed or not, 1ῦ is not 

lawful to the woman to marry another man. And although 

she have married another man, and even if the copula carnalis 

have followed, she ought to be separated from him, and com- 

pelled by ecclesiastical discipline to return to the first, although 

others think otherwise, and judgment has been sometimes 
otherwise given even by some of our predecessors.”? This 
concluding admission that the tradition of the past was not 

with him in this matter is well worthy of notice in connexion 

with Alexander III.’s remarkable decision. It may well be 
doubted whether any similar decision had ever been either 

given or acted upon in the first thousand years of the Church’s 
history. During those centuries in which mutual consent was 
admitted by the State to be a sufficient ground for the disso- 

lution of marriage, it is probable that in any case of contract 
without copula where dissolution was desired the parties would 

effect the dissolution in the ordinary way before the law, and 





1 Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 190. 2 Lbid. p. 191. 
K 2 


Case of a 
party desir- 
ing to 
undertake 
monastic 
obligations. 


Consent 

de praesenti 
and de 
futuro, 


132 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the Church would take no heed. In one event certainly it had 
all along been admitted that there might be dissolution. If 
either party desired to undertake the obligations of the monastic 
life before the consummation of a marriage had taken place, it 
had never been denied that such religious professsion might 
still be made, notwithstanding the most formal of marriage 
contracts. The case of 8. Alexius, who left his young wife on 
the wedding-day to lead a hermit’s life, is an early instance. 
So far from there being any dispute in such cases the tendency 
was rather in the direction of suffering persons to embrace the 
monastic life, even when their marriages had been consum- 
mated, the Eastern Church in such cases being prepared to 
admit a divorce, and the re-marriage of the partner left in the 
world? The Western Church here followed S. Gregory in 
refusing any such divorce after consummation, but an uncon- 
summated marriage had never been allowed to stand in the 
way of religious profession. Accordingly Alexander III. not- 
withstanding his rigorist reading of the force of consent, 
expressed de praesenti, found himself obliged to provide that 
whatever the relation so induced might be, it was dissolved, 
and dissolved ὦ vineuwlo, in the case of a person making a 
religious profession. It has been noticed that he made a 
similar concession in cases of impotence to the “custom of the 
Gallican Church.” 

To Alexander III. is due the formal recognition and state- 
ment of the distinction which was to play so great a part in the 
following centuries, between consent expressed de praesenti and 
that which was only de futuro. If a man and a woman take 
one another solemnly de praesentt, from that present moment, as 
man and wife, the contract holds, according to Alexander IIL, 
whether consummated or not. If the contract be de futuro, or 
only an undertaking to effect a marriage at some future time, 





1 A very interesting fresco at S. Clement’s, Rome, has the story of S. Alexius 
for its subject. See Father Mullooly’s book on S. Clement’s. 

2 See Chapter VII. 

3 Alexander III. Salernitano Archiepiscopo: ‘ Quia cum non fuissent una caro 
simul effecti, satis potest unus ad Deum transire, et alter in seculo remanere.” 
(Quoted by Van Espen, tit. xv.) 

4 Freisen, Can. Eherecht, pp. 191-196. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY Hse 


it is not yet a marriage, and cannot be held to bind indissolubly 

without further ratification. This distinction at once threw off 

a large number of cases which would have presented difficulties; 

but the strict line taken with regard to consent de praesenti is 

sufficiently difficult to reconcile with Christian tradition. As 

has been seen, Alexander III. had to recede from it in the case 

of persons undertaking monastic obligations, and in the case of 

persons physically incapable; while the difficulties induced by 

it have been such, that the later Western Church has been led 

to adopt a doctrine absolutely unknown to Christian antiquity, 

the doctrine, that is to say, that although an unconsummated 

marriage is ordinarily indissoluble, such a marriage may upon Papal dis- 

occasion be dissolved by Papal dispensation. peegate 
Thus the present practice of the Roman communion, while it 

consistently and uprightly denies that a consummated marriage 

can be dissolved by any human power, asserts that there is no 


case of unconsummated marriage which cannot on occasion be Copula in 
practice 


dissolved. It follows that the copula is held to be essential for peta to be 
an indissoluble Christian marriage. cece a 
(2) Contracts de futuro cum subsequente copula. The same @) ee 
ontracts 


conclusion follows without much difficulty from the practice ge futuro 
of the Church in regard to another class of cases. The ietunid 
distinction of Alexander III. between contracts de praesenti copula. 
and contracts de futuro, while it sought to rigorously impose 

the marriage character upon the former, dismissed the latter 

from the category of marriages altogether. But if a contract 

de futuro should happen to be followed by the copula, it was 

held to have become a marriage. Even Alexander III. ruled 

that in such a case the marriage effected could not be super- 

seded by any desponsatio de praesenti which might be entered 

into subsequently,! and the ordinary recognition of these 
irregular marriages soon became the acknowledged rule of 

the courts.” This recognition continued to form part of the 

law of England till the passing of Lord Hardwicke’s Act in 

17538, and it was usual, as elsewhere in Christendom, to append 

to the recognition an order to the parties to proceed to solemnize 

their marriage in facie Heclesiae. The theologians who deny that 








1 Freisen, Can. Eherecht, Ὁ. 193. 


Practice 

treats the 
copula as 
essential. 


(iii) Reason. 


134 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the copula is essential explain the practice of recognising these 
marriages by the statement that the copula is here the evidence 
of the present character of the consent. But the fact remains 
that a marriage so effected stands in Christian practice as 
indissoluble because the copula has found place, while no 
marriage, with whatsoever solemnity of consent, is treated as 
necessarily indissoluble so long as it remains without con- 
summation. 

It thus appears that the practice of the Church is over- 
whelminely in favour of the view that the copula is of the 
essence of Christian marriage. This cannot be said of the 
theoretical teaching of the theologians, or even of the canonists, 
of the latter half of the Christian centuries. The earlier 
tradition, on the whole, treated the copula as essential. 

The question, which, it should be remembered, is of high 
importance in practice, is one with respect to which we have 
not only to consult Holy Scripture and Christian tradition, but 
it is one to which Reason has necessarily much to say. The 
Christian theorists who assert that a marriage is entirely con- 
stituted in its essential character by consent de praesents are 
found to assert not only that proposition, but two other propo- 
sitions with it. They teach— 


(1) That marriage, by Divine institution, is indissoluble. 

(2) That unconsummated marriage is dissoluble in the cases 

of— 
(a) Physical incapacity. 
(b) Religious profession. 
(c) Papal dispensation. 


(3) That consent de praesenti is the sole essential for the 
marriage of baptized persons, the copula not being essential. 


By the laws of Reason any two of these propositions may be 
held together, but all three cannot be so held. It may be held 
that (1) marriage is indissoluble, and (2) that unconsummated 
marriages may be dissolved; but in that case it cannot be held 
(3) that consent alone constitutes an indissoluble marriage. It 
may be held (1) that marriage is indissoluble, and (3) that 
consent makes an indissoluble marriage, but then it cannot be 


EE EEE ΝΜ EEE ee 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 7195 


held (2) that unconsummated marriages may be dissolved. Τὺ 
may be held (2). that unconsummated marriages may be dis- 
solved, and (3) that consent is sufficient to constitute a 
completed marriage, but then it cannot be held (1) that 
marriage is indissoluble. We are here in face of one of those 
difficulties raised by the necessary laws of thought which no 
accumulation of traditional teaching can overcome. The three 
propositions are of a character which falls fairly within the 
scope of the ordinary laws of logic, and by those laws, notwith- 
standing all which may be adduced to the contrary, no man 
who can think is able to hold these three propositions at one 
and the same time. 

If, then, rejecting an impossible attempt, we return to the 
teaching of Holy Scripture and the more prevailing Christian 
tradition for guidance, and accept the essential character of the 
copula, the following group of propositions is the result: 


1, That Christian marriage is indissoluble. 

2. That unconsummated marriage may be dissolved. 

3. That the copula, as well as inutual consent, is required to 
constitute marriage complete and indissoluble. 


B. Is MARRIAGE A CONTRACT OR AN ESTATE ? 


The considerations which have occupied this chapter make it 

possible to understand the enormous difference which exists 
between the Christian conception of marriage and that which yarriage 
was entertained by the Romans. That difference may be briefly aati μ 
expressed by the statement that to the Roman marriage was contract; 
a contract, while to the Christian it is an estate (status), The sai 
Roman declined to find anything in marriage which the con- an estate. 
tract had not placed there ;. and since a contract had made 
marriage, a contract could unmake it. It was born of mutual 
consent, and with the death of mutual consent it too must die. 
Such as it was while it lasted, it was to be explained by the 
terms and conditions of the contract, expressed or implied. 
The contracting parties had created the relation, and in ex- 
plaining it there was no call to go behind the contracting 
parties. 


136 HOLY MATRIMONY 


To the Christian, on the other hand, this view of the marriage 
relation was from the first inadmissible. A contract there 
must doubtless be as a preliminary of marriage; but marriage 
was to the Christian an “honourable estate instituted of Gop,” 
and accordingly the nature, obligations, and privileges of 
marriage were to be sought not only or chiefly in the terms and 
conditions of the contract, but in the institution of the Founder. 
The contract was a mutual undertaking to live together in a 
Divinely instituted estate, and with the initiation of that estate 
the contract might be said to be fulfilled. The estate was 
initiated by the copula, and accordingly, when once the copula 
had followed on the contract, the estate was held to be in force, 
and it was no longer open to the parties to rescind or modify 
their contract. The estate once sufficiently constituted could 
only with Christians be the one Divinely instituted estate of 
Holy Matrimony, and as such was indissoluble. 


C. OF THE IMPEDIMENTS WHICH HINDER CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 


The impediments to marriage are commonly enumerated in 
theological handbooks somewhat as follows :1 


Error. 
Force and Fear. 
Consanguinity (with (a) spiritual and (Ὁ) legal Cognation). 
Affinity (with Public Honesty). 
Inpotence. 
Age. 
Condition. 
Crime. 
Abduction. 
Clandestinity. 
. Existing marriage (Ligamen). 
Holy Orders. 
13. Religious Profession. 
Ditference of Christian worship (Disparitas cultus). 
. Difference of religion (Mixta religio), 


μι fj 
ΞΟ eel ee ΞΡ. 


— 
bt 


μι μι 
σι Ss 





1 Error, Conditio, Votum, Cognatio, Crimen, 
Cultus disparitas, Vis, Ordo, Ligamen, Honestas, 
fKtas, Affinis, si Clandestinus et Impos, 

Raptave sit mulier, nec parti reddita tute. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY tsa 


The impediments of (1) Error and (2) Force and Fear, with 
(9) Abduction, so far as it affects consent, have already been 
noticed under the heading of Consent; and those of (5) 
Impotence and (6) Age have similarly been considered in 
connexion with the copula. The impediments of Relationship 
(3, 4) will be treated in the chapter on the subject; the 
impediments from difference of worship or religion (14, 15) 
will be noticed in connexion with the Re-marriage of Converts ; 
and the impediment from existing obligation (11) will be 
abundantly illustrated in the chapters on Divorce and 
Polygamy. The remaining impediments, being of human 
imposition, will not concern this treatise, which deals only 
with the Divine institution. They are (7) Condition, which 
has disappeared from Christendom with the disappearance of 
slavery; (8) Crime and (9) Abduction, so far as it does not 
affect consent, two impediments where the prohibition to marry 
is properly a penalty assigned to misconduct; (10) Clandestinity, 
or the failure to fulfil the positive rules of the Church as 
regards solemnization; (12) Holy Orders and (15) Religious 
Profession, which only exclude the estate of marriage under 
local or particular regulations. 


D. Is MARRIAGE A SACRAMENT ? 


This question has given rise to much warm disputation, The 


which for the most part has been singularly barren. The ™®ninssof 
5 the word 


answer to the question must obviously depend very largely Sacrament. 
on what is meant by the word Sacrament. - 

1. The word Sacrament is sometimes broadly used to cover 
all those ordinances and incidents in which an inward and 
spiritual energy is connected with an outward and spiritual 
sign.t Such sacramental ordinances are not confined to the 


1 This is one of the significations admitted by the English Homily: ‘‘ And 
writing to Bonifacius of the baptism of infants, he saith, If sacraments had not 
a certain similitude of those things whereof they be sacraments, they should be 
no sacraments at all. And of this similitude they do for the most part receive 
names of the self-same things they signify. By these words of S. Augustine it 
appeareth that he alloweth the common description of a sacrament, which is, 
that it is a visible sign of an invisible grace ; that is to say, that setteth out to 


0 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Christian dispensation. The tree of life and the brazen 
serpent are instances of Old Testament sacraments in this 
sense. 

2. In the Vulgate and in the writings of the early Fathers 
the word sacrament is used in a loose sense, which may be said 
to cover any mystery of the Faith. 

3. The Anglican Catechism defines a sacrament as not only 
“an outward and visible sien of an inward and spiritual grace,” 
but farther requires that it be “ordained by Christ Himself, as 
a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us 
thereof.” So too the 25th Article distinguishes between the 
“two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel” 
and the “five commonly called sacraments.” 

4. The Anglican Homily Of Common Prayer and Sacraments, 
while admitting some very broad senses of the word sacrament, 
says that “according to the exact signification of a sacrament” 
we may only understand those “visible signs expressly com-— 
manded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the 
promise of free forgiveness of our sins, and of our holiness and 
joining in Christ.” 

5. Perhaps the most common definition of a sacrament in use 
among modern theologians is that which defines it as “the 
outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” 
limiting grace to the grace of the Holy Spirit accorded to 
Christians, but refusing all other limitations, such as that 
which requires that the sacraments shall be specially “ ordained 
by Christ our Lord in the Gospel.” Consequently this defini- 
tion does not include non-Christian ordinances as sacraments, 
but it accords the name to any Christian ordinances which 
unite an “outward and visible sign” with an “inward and 
spiritual grace.” 

Several other meanings in which the word sacrament has 
been used might be cited, but for the purpose of this treatise it 


the eyes and other outward senses the inward working of Gonp’s free mercy, and 
doth, as it were, seal in our hearts the promises of Gop. And so was circumcision 
a sacrament, which preached unto the outward senses, the inward cutting away 
of the foreskin of the heart, and sealed and made sure in the hearts of the 
circumcised the promise of Gop touching the promised seed that they looked 
for.”—Homily Of Common Prayer and Sacraments. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 139 


appears unnecessary to follow them.! The meanings which 
have been cited may now be considered as to whether they are 
or are not applicable to the ordinance of marriage. 

1. The Sacrament or Mystery of Marriage irrespective of 
Christianity. | 

In that broad sense of the word sacrament which applies it 
to all those ordinances and incidents in which an inward and 
spiritual energy is connected with an outward and visible sign, 
it may be fairly said that the sacramental character is every- 
where impressed upon Gop’s dealings with mankind. It would 
seem that He adapted His communications to that composite 
nature of the race, which is neither pure spirit nor mere flesh. 
The Tree of Life was one of the Sacraments of Eden: to eat of 
it was to live for ever. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good 
and Evil not only supphed a test of obedience, but was the 
channel of an inward working. The Brazen Serpent in the 
wilderness was another such sacrament: to gaze upon it was 
to be healed, while not to gaze upon it was to forego the healing 
benefit. The inward energy was attached to the outward 
symbol. Circumcision was a continuing ordinance in which 
the outward sign was connected by Gop’s covenant with special 


1 Cp. Dean Paget in Lux Mundi, p. 424: ‘‘The dispute as to the number of 
the sacraments is indeed a ‘question of a name’; and it ought to have been 
acknowledged all along that the name was being used with different and shifting 
meanings. That men knew that it did not designate an essentially distinct 
class of exactly equivalent units is shown on all sides; 8. Thomas Aquinas 
seems to doubt, at least, whether there are not more than seven sacraments, 
divides the seven into groups with very important notes of difference, 
and decides that the Eucharist is ‘Sacramentorum omnium potissimum’: 
Calvin was not unwilling that the laying on of hands should be called a 
sacrament, though he would not reckon it ‘inter ordinaria sacramenta’; the 
Council of Trent has an anathema for anyone who says that the seven sacraments 
are so equal that none is more worthy than another: Richard Baxter is- 
tinguishes between ‘three sorts of sacraments’; in the second sense of the name, 
in which it-is taken to mean ‘any solemn investiture of a person, by ministerial 
delivery, in a state of Church privileges, or some special gospel mercy,’ he grants 
‘that there are five sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation, Absolution, the Lord’s 
Supper, and Ordination’; and elsewhere he declares that ‘they that peremp- 
torily say without distinguishing that there are but two sacraments in all, do 
but harden them (the Papists) by the unwarrantable narrowing of the word.’ 
(Richard Baxter, Confirmation and Restauration, pp. 88, 89 ; Ecclesiastical Cases 
of Conscience, Qu. 99.)” 


140 HOLY MATRIMONY 


mercy to the person circumcised. The voice of Moses speaking 
to the rock, the actions of Elisha in raising the Shunamite’s 
child, the washing of Naaman the Syrian in the Jordan, were 
all sacramental as connecting an inward working with an 
outward event. It might not be erroneous to speak of such 
sacramental incidents as exhibiting an “outward and visible 
sian of an inward and spiritual grace,” but to avoid the 
confusion arising from the ascription of different meanings to 
the word grace, it is better to define the sort of mystery or 
sacrament which we are now considering as “the outward and 
visible sign of an inward and spiritual energy,” using the word 
energy in the sense of the évepyeta of Aristotle, that 18, a 
working. So defined, no ordinance or incident may better 
claim the sacramental character than marriage as first instituted 
by Gop in Paradise. Its most evident characteristic was that 
union in one flesh which was an external fact. Its character 
of a mystery was due to that marvellous interpenetration of 
the whole being which is mysteriously connected with the 
union in one flesh. The highest and most intimate of spiritual 
friendships can never be marriage without the union of the 
flesh: but where the man and woman are one flesh, there 
indefinite yearnings are replaced by the peacefulness of a 
pervading possession, the inward energy corresponding to the 
outward union. Marriage is thus an ordinance peculiarly 
human. It is adapted to man’s composite nature which is at 
once fleshly and spiritual. There is no marriage among the 
angels; nor is there any marriage among the brutes. The 
brutes have an instinct of propagation, and its fulfilment 
appears in some cases to develop certain sympathies; but where 
these are most developed they obviously fall far short of the 
harmony of soul and spirit which is given to the human pair. 
The angels may have capacities of mutual intimacy, but they 
have no such composite nature as has man, and “they neither 
marry nor are given in marriage.”' Man alone has the com- 
posite nature, and to man alone is marriage given. It is obvious 
that in this sense the mystery or sacrament of marriage is prior 
to and not dependent upon the Christian system. This 





1S. Matthew xxii. 80, S. Mark xii. 25. S. Luke xx, 35. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 141 


mysterious or sacramental character is the character imposed 
upon the ordinance as first Divinely instituted. It is a 
character which has never been lost, though variously degraded, 
in the marriages which have found place since the Fall. It is 
the character without which there could be no marriage even 
among the baptized. With the baptized indeed the power of 
the indwelling Spirit adds, as we shall see, a sacramental 
character in the specially Christian sense, a character not 
found outside the baptized; but the fundamental mystery of 
marriage even among Christians is that of the original 
ordinance, and is shared by Christians with the remainder 
of the human race. 

2, The Sacramentum of the Vulgate. 

Coming now to specially Christian senses of the word sacra- 
ment, we have first to consider the meaning of the word as it is 
found in the Vulgate and the Fathers. The writers of the 
Latin Church often consider it sufficient in reply to the question, 
“Is Marriage a Sacrament ?” to quote the words, “Sacramentum 
hoc magnum est.”! But the word sacramentum is used in the 
Vulgate as in the early Latin Fathers in a very indeterminate 
sense. We read of the sacramentum of godliness,? the sacra- 
mentum of the seven stars,® the sacramentum of the woman and 
the beast. The word occurs in the Vulgate sixteen times, and, 
excluding the passage in which it is applied to marriage, in no 
one of the other fifteen cases can it possibly mean a sacrament 
in any sense employed by modern theologians. In the passage 
“Sacramentum hoe magnum est,” the word renders the Greek 
word μυστηρίον, Which is employed with similar indefiniteness. 
It has indeed been pointed out by Schéttgen® that the formula, 
“This is a great mystery,” or, more exactly, “This mystery is 
ereat,’ is a formula in common use among the Rabbis. It is 
clear therefore that originally the words had no special reference 
to Christian marriage. They may come to have such a special 
meaning as used by 8S. Paul; for he goes on to say, “but I 





1 Eph. v. 32. 21 Timothy iii. 16. 

3 Revelation i. 20. 4 Revelation xvii. 7. 

5 Schéttgen, Hore Hebraicw et Talmudicw, Dresden, 1733, tom. 1. pp. 
783 566. 


180 ; HOLY -MATRIMONY 


speak concerning Christ and the Church.” It is, however, in 
any case impossible to narrow the meaning of the word 
μυστηρίον or sacramentum in this passage to the equivalent of 
sacrament, as commonly used by modern theologians of the 
Christian sacramental ordinances. 

The early Latin Fathers used the word sacramentum with the 
same vagueness as the Vulgate. Tertullian calls Baptism and 
the Holy Eucharist sacraments —“Sacramentum aque,” ὦ 
“Sacramentum lavacri,’? “Sacramentum Eucharistie ;”? but 
he also in several places applies the word from the analogy of 
the military sacramentum to the oath of Christian service or 
abjuration of evil taken in Baptism. 8. Cyprian calls the 
mysteries of the Lord’s Prayer sacramenta.’ 58. Leo the Great 
speaks of the “sacramentum of the Incarnation,’® of the 
“sacramentum of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection,’ of 
the sacramentum of the Scriptures.2 8. Augustine speaks of 
Christian marriage as a sacrament—“The advantage of marriage 
among all nations and men hes in its being a cause of generation 
and a bond of chastity, but as concerns the people of Gop, also 
in the holiness of a sacrament.”® It is plain, however, from 
another chapter of the same treatise,’® that he employs the word 
in a very wide sense indeed, as he speaks of the polygamous 
unions of the Jews as sacramentum pluralium nuptiarum, 
a sacrament of plural nuptials. 

We conclude therefore that while marriage was certainly a 
Sacramentum in the sense of the Vulgate and of the early 
Latin Fathers, that sense was a very wide one, and not coin- 
cident with any sense in which the word is now cmaployed in 
Christian theology. 

3. “Ordained by Christ Himself.” 

The next definition of the word sacrament is that which 
confines it to those ordinances which were ordained “by Christ 
Himself,” or “by Christ our Lord in the Gospel.” It is in 


1 De Bapt. i. xii. 2 De Virg. Veland. ii. 3 De Corona, iii. 
4 De Corona, xii. De Idololatria, vi. De Spectaculis. 

5 De Oratione Dominica, ix. xxviii. 6 Serm. xxiv. 4, 

7 Serm. lxi. 1. 8 Serm., Ixii. 1. 


® De Bono Conjugali, ¢. 24. OL G8, 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 143 


connexion with this somewhat stringent definition of a 
sacrament that we come across an identical tendency to over- 
look the essential character of the grace of Christian marriage 
in very opposite schools of theology. The Protestant bodies 
tend to deny that there can be any sacramental character in 
Christian marriage, on the ground that there was no special 
outward institution of marriage as a sacrament by Christ our 
Lord in the Gospel; while what we may term the more 
superficial schools of Roman Catholic theologians, starting 
from the sacramental character in marriage which has been 
laid down by the Council of Trent and other authorities, 
consider it necessary to find some outward institution of the 
sacrament by our Lord. 

A recent Roman Catholic writer, the Rev. Charles W. Wood, 
writes as follows: 


“Τὴ the new law our blessed Lord, as the Council of Trent teaches, 
instituted seven sacraments as means of grace. One of them was 
Matrimony. . . . It is not known when our Lord actually instituted 
this particular sacrament. Many of the Fathers” [sic, without 
authorities] “thought that as He sanctified water for washing away 
sins by being Himself baptized in the Jordan, so He sanctified 
marriage, and raised it to the dignity of a sacrament, by Himself 
assisting at the marriage at Cana, when He worked His first miracle ; 
while others refer to the words of our Lord when, in speaking of 
marriage and its institution by Gop in paradise, He said, ‘ What 
therefore Gop hath joined together, let no man put asunder.’? 

‘And others again think that it was formally ordained by our 
Lord with other sacraments after His resurrection, when He spoke 
to His disciples of the kingdom of Gop. 

“ Although the exact time of its institution may not be known, it 
is nevertheless an undoubted tradition that the natural contract of 
marriage was ennobled and raised to the dignity of a sacrament, and 
was constituted a sacramental union, perpetual and indissoluble, 
having annexed to it Divine blessings and graces, which at once 
transferred marriage from the mere natural to the spiritual and 
supernatural order of things. 

“The Roman catechism refers to this undoubted tradition of the 
Church, and to the words of S. Paul as proving the Divine institution 
in his epistle to the Ephesians v. 28.” 





1 Marriage (Manchester, 1887), p. 6. 2 Matt. xix. 6. 3 Acts i. 3. 


144 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Mr. Wood has here summed up the views of many Roman 
Catholic theologians of more or less accepted authority, whom 
it is hardly necessary to quote. The opinion that “our Lord 
sanctified marriage, and raised it to the dignity of a sacrament, 
by Himself assisting at the marriage of Cana,” seems to be 
sufficiently disposed of when it is remembered that the marriage 
of Cana, not being between baptized persons, was not a Christian 
marriage, and could not therefore have the character of a 
Christian sacrament. Accordingly it is not possible that any 
Christian sacrament of marriage was first instituted in connexion 
with the marriage at Cana. 

The reference of the institution to the words, “ What therefore 
Gop hath joined together, let no man put asunder,” is perhaps 
less open to objection. It appears to be clear that our Lord, in 
discrediting the system of divorce which had been permitted 
by Gop to the Israelites, was at any rate leading up to the 
estate of matrimony as Christians should receive it; an estate 
in which baptized persons would have a special assistance of 
the Divine grace. To find in the words the actual institu- 
tion of a sacrament does, however, seem a somewhat violent 
interpretation. It is in truth an interpretation only intelligible 
as required to support the foregone conclusion that there must 
be somewhere a point of institution by our Lord, which is 
obvious to man. 

That our Lord may have taught about this sacred union 
when after His Resurrection He spoke of the things pertaining 
to the kingdom of Gop is, no doubt, highly probable. That 
“kingdom of GoD” is commonly understood of the Church on 
earth, which our Lord was instructing the Apostles to follow 
Him in founding; and if Christian marriage is the copy of 
Christ’s union with His Church, some reference to it during 
the great forty days seems entirely suitable. But it is needless 
to say that there is here no ground of proof. 

We conclude therefore that if the definition of a Christian 
sacrament is to exclude any ordinance which cannot be proved 
to have been instituted “by Christ Himself,’ or “ by Christ our 
Lord in the Gospel,” it is not in these senses possible to prove 
that Christian marriage has the sacramental character. 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 145 


4, The Sacraments of the English Homily. 

Next to be noticed is the remarkable definition of the word 
Sacrament, which is given in the English Church Homily “ of 
Common Prayer and Sacraments.” Sacraments, according to 
the “exact signification” of the word, are “visible signs ex- 
pressly commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is 
annexed the promise of free forgiveness of our sins, and of our 
holiness and joining in Christ.” It would probably not be con- 
tended by any that Christian marriage is a sacrament in this 
sense. The Homily goes on to admit the legitimate use of the 
word sacrament with the widest of meanings: “But in a 
general acception the name of a sacrament may be attributed 
to anything whereby an holy thing is signified.” 

(5) The outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual 
grace. 

There remains the view that a Christian sacrament is suffi- 
ciently defined by the phrase “the outward and visible sign of 
an inward and spiritual grace,’ where grace is understood to 
be the grace of the Holy Spirit as accorded to Christians. 
Marriage may or may not have been instituted as a sacrament 
by Christ Himself; but it is still sacramental in its character 
if, corresponding with an outward and visible sign, there is 
found an inward and spiritual grace. It may be broadly said to 
be the doctrine of all the historic churches of Christendom that 
in Christian marriage there is such an inward grace coupled with 
an outward sien. It is disputed whether the outward sign is to 
be looked for in the contract, in the copula, in the benediction, 
or in any combination of these; and there is also a difficult 
question as to wherein consists the inward grace; but the historic 
churches may be said to be so far agreed that they recognize in 
marriage an inward grace connected with an outward sign. 


Dismissing the enquiry as it affects the word “sacrament,” it 
is clear that the real question at issue between those disputants 
who assert, and those who deny, the sacramental character of Is Brace 
Christian marriage is the question whether grace is conferred anne 
in connection with the ordinance or not. This is a question mre 
of vital importance. It is in fact in another form the question, marriage? 


L 


Recapitula- 
tion of the 
three 
characters 
of marriage 
as found in 
history. 


146 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Is the marriage of Christians in its essential character identical 
with the marriage of non-Christians, or has it a supernatural 
character, resulting from the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is 
not shared with it by non-Christian marriage ? 

In endeavouring to answer this question it may be of service 
to recall the characters of the Divine institution of marriage 
as we find it in history (1) in the state of innocence and (2) 
after the fall and outside Christianity. The institution is 
fundamentally the same alike in these two stages, and in 
Christian marriage; but its character is impressed in markedly 
different ways by the state or condition of the persons who are 
the subjects of marriage. 

(1) In the state of innocence the Divine institution of 
marriage was as yet unsoiled and free from degradation. It 
found place in subjects who differed from fallen man in being 
sinless, and who therefore brought the Divine institution of 
marriage into no unworthy setting. But the subjects of 
marriage in the state of innocence were so far less favoured 
than Christians in that they were not members of Christ, nor 
were their bodies temples of the Holy Ghost. The Catholic 
theology teaches that they were favoured with the Divine 
assistance, but that this assistance was not given as it is given 
to Christians by the indwelling of the Spirit. Possibly, as the 
Scotist theology teaches, Gop would have been incarnate, 
and men would have been members of Christ, and temples of 
the Holy Ghost, even though sin had not come into the world. 
But, however this may be, Adam and Eve in the state of 
innocence were not members of Christ, or temples of the 
Holy Ghost. 

(2) After the Fall the institution of marriage was still 
fundamentally the same; but its character was altered, and 
it became variously degraded in consequence of the sinful 
condition of the man and woman who were the subjects of 
it. They no longer possessed the innocence of Eden, and they 
did not yet possess the indwelling Spirit of the restored. 
Consequently the subjects of marriage were never at one 
with Gop, but at best were but awaiting their redemption, 
their actual state being the state of alienation, in whieh the 








OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 147 


Divine institution of marriage could never have its perfect 
working. 

(3) In the Christian Church the Divine institution still 
remains fundamentally the same, but a change has come over 
the subjects of it, giving it in consequence a new and altered 
character. The Christian man and the Christian woman are 
each made by baptism “a member of Christ, the child of Gop, 
and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” Body as well as 
soul is holy, and in the body of each the Holy Spirit makes His 
dwelling. The state of alienation has passed away, and not- 
withstanding the evil tendencies of the fallen nature which 
has been inherited, the restored servants of Gop have an 
inherent holiness which renders them as different from the 
unrestored as light from darkness. It is this difference in the 
subjects of Christian marriage which makes Christian marriage 
to be what it is. The gift of the state of grace and of peace 
with Gop at once requires that all the original demands of 
the Divine institution be complied with, lest that state of 
grace be forfeited. Hence Christian marriage becomes at once, 
like the marriage of the state of innocence, a marriage both 
indissoluble and exclusively faithful. But Christian marriage, 
although reverting to the original requirements of marriage 
in the state of innocence, rises above that marriage in the 
highly favoured status of the man and woman who are its 
subjects. These being members of Christ, and temples of the 
Holy Spirit, when they are united in marriage not merely 
remain each blessed by the Spirit as before the marriage, 
but the grace of the indwelling Spirit, working through the 
Divine institution of marriage, makes the marriage union to 
be a deeper, more intense, more mysterious interpenetration 
of being than it had been even in Paradise. If marriage is 
a copy of the union of Christ with His Church, it may be 
said that it first rises to the fulness of meaning which that 
high pattern implies in the persons of the members of Christ’s 
Church. Thus marriage acquires a new character in the 
Christian which is not to be found either (1) in the marriage 
of Paradise, or (2) in that of the fallen and unrestored. It 
is due to the conferring of Divine grace, and that grace is 

L 2 


The grace 
of Christian 
marriage 

is the 
abiding 
grace of 
baptism, 
passed into 
the mould 
of the 
Divine 
institution 
of 
marriage. 


The 
individual 
may look 
fora 


χάρισμα. 


148 HOLY MATRIMONY 


conferred in the bringing of two members of Christ into the 
Divine institution of marriage. Thus the grace of Christian 
marriage may be said to be the abiding grace of baptism, 
passed into the mould of the Divine institution of matrimony. 
What is new would seem to be not so much the bestowal 
of grace from a fresh and independent source, or by a fresh 
and independent channel, as the development of the indwelling 
grace of the baptized in the Divinely ordered estate of marriage 
now newly undertaken by the persons. The original mystery 
or sacrament of Paradise is in them transfigured by the Holy 
Spirit into a Christian sacrament. 

If then we understand that the abiding grace of baptism, 
passed into the mould of Gon’s institution of marriage, gives 
to marriage its special character of Christian marriage, render- 
ing it in a true sense a Christian sacrament, there appears to be 
no need to seek farther for some new grace of marriage derived 
from an external source, as, for example, from the priestly 
benediction. As has been seen, no form of external solemniza- 
tion has been held in the Christian Church to be essential 
to the constitution of a perfect Christian marriage. If then 
no form of solemnization is essential, it 1s not from the 
solemnization that the grace of Christian marriage can be 
derived. The institution finds its essential characteristics in 
(1) the consent and (2) the copula, while (8) the condition 
of the baptized Christian brings to it- what is necessary to 
transfigure the original ordinance into the Christian sacrament. 
Thus it is that for Christian marriage (1) baptism, (2) consent, 
and (3) the copula are the essential conditions, _ 

While, however, the grace of Christian marriage appears to 
be thus sufficiently indicated, it is certain that individual 
Christians called by Gop to the marriage state may look for a 
χάρισμα or gift of grace to enable them to live up to the 
requirements of their calling. §S. Paul says, “ For I would that 
all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper 
gift (χάρισμα) of God, one after this manner, and another after 
that.” A gift of Gop for the right abiding in the married state 
must be an abiding gift, a blessed habitus of the soul which ~ 
each individual Christian called to marriage may rightly seek 


OF CHRISTIAN, OR HOLY, MATRIMONY 149 


of Gop. It does not, however, appear to be, properly speaking, 
the grace of the sacrament, since it is entirely analogous to the 
grace given to the celibate to lead the celibate life. Each has 
“his χάρισμα of God, one after this manner, and another after 
that.” In each case the χάρισμα is not the grace of the state, 
but the special gift of Gop to the individual soul for the right 
abiding in the state to which he is individually called. 

The great difficulty of the teaching which sees a Christian 
sacrament in the marriage of the baptized is found in the 
terrible contrast between the actual spiritual condition of the 
unworthy Christian and the holiness which baptism should 
imply. It is, however, no new difficulty peculiar to the 
Catholic teaching of marriage, and those who find in it a 
stumbling - block should rather address themselves to the 
theology of baptism. Baptism, over and above those gifts of 
personal holiness which sin may wipe away, implants a certain 
character which no unworthiness can remove. It is a character 
which adds condemnation to the unworthy subject of it, and 
makes him more fit for punishment than even the outer heathen. 
But it is a character which remains, and accordingly, however 
rebellious a child the man may be, he is still in a sense the 
child of Gop by virtue of his adoption in baptism. So too, 
while the special graces of the Holy Ghost which follow from 
baptism become to him in his sin additional grounds of con- 
demnation, he cannot shake himself entirely free from the 
work of the Holy Ghost in the baptized. If his will consent 
to the “deadly sin” of fornication with full acceptance, it is 
the prevalent teaching of the Church of Christ that such sin 
unrepented of is a bar to everlasting life. 8S. Paul says that 
“they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God.” Yet there is a sense in which the body of the fornicator 
does not cease to be the member of Christ in the sinful 
rebellion of the will, for he can “take the members of Christ 
and make them the members of an harlot.” There is thus 
implanted in baptism a certain character or impress of the 
covenant, which remains when personal holiness is dead, and 
hence it is that baptism may never be repeated, even though a 
penitent return from the lowest depths of sinful living. He 1s 


Difficulty 
of this 
teaching 
in the 
lives of 
unworthy 
Christians, 


A 
character 
in the 
baptized 


whic 
unworthi- 
ness does 
not remove. 


The 

necessity 
of an out- 
ward test. 


150 HOLY MATRIMONY 


already within the covenanted mercies of Gop, and though he 
needs Gop’s pardon to restore him to a state of salvation, he 
does not need to be baptized anew, but only to “stir up the 
eift of Gop, which is in” him by his original baptism. “One 
Lord, one faith, one baptism.” 

Again, if there is a special grace in Christian marriage, it is 
clear that there must be some outward means whereby a person 
desiring to marry may recognise the Christian character in the 
intended partner. Profession as to the inward state would 
altogether fail in trustworthiness for the purpose of a test. 
Just as for the office and work of the priesthood it is necessary 
that the Church should be able to point to the external fact of 
ordination, that all men may be assured of the validity of the 
sacraments administered to them, so for a Christian marriage it 
is necessary that each of the parties should be able to assure 
himself or herself of the competence of the other by reference 
to an external fact, a fact which the Church has always found 
in baptism. 

It must, however, be repeated that the subject of the 
unworthy recipients of ordinances is a wide subject which 
cannot be fully considered in a treatise on the special subject - 
of Holy Matrimony. The test of Christian competence which 
has been required by the Church in history is the test οἱ 
baptism.t It is asserted by none that those nominal Christians 
who approach a sacramental ordinance in a state of unrepented 
sin are likely to receive such ordinances to their souls’ health ; 
but the most sinful Christian receives certain benefits in posse 
which may become actual when he regains a state of salvation, 
and again the Christian partner in a state of grace who has 
married a Christian in a state of sin is presumably not less 
sanctified and sanctifying than the convert from heathenism 
permitted to remain with a non-Christian partner. 


1 See Chapter VIII. 





Cli Rib Rs Wit 


Of THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE; 
Ady PORE, KORCE 


ERHAPS the most important, certainly the most difficult, pisicutty 

of the questions which have been raised with regard to piers, 
Christian marriage is the question whether under any circum- 
stances short of death it admits the dissolution of the marriage 
bond. The evidence of Holy Scripture is difficult to under- 
stand, the appeal to Christian tradition is not quite uniformly 
answered, and from the standpoint of reason it may be 
conceded that there are arguments of weight on both sides. 
If the question were merely speculative, we might be content 
to leave it as we leave certain other questions as to free- 
will and necessity till a clearer light streams in upon the soul. 
But it is a characteristic feature of the great questions Nemes 
surrounding the marriage state that they are eminently of definite 
practical questions, and that therefore they have to be canes 
answered, and to be answered as they arise. It has to be practically 
decided definitely for each of a long succession of cases whether aes ea 
the bond of marriage can be dissolved in its essential character 
or not. Farther, granted the fact of the marriage bond, the 
answer given in any case excludes the contrary answer in every 
case. If the estate of Christian marriage is dissolved in its 
essential character by nothing short of the death of one of the 
parties, then it is impossible to admit the re-marriage of one 
party during the lifetime of the other under whatsoever plea of 
ageravating circumstance. If, on the other hand, divorce from 
the marriage bond is admitted under any circumstances what- 
soever, then in logical necessity the essentially indissoluble 





Appeal 
made to 
(1) Holy 
Scripture ; 
(z) The 
Church in 
History ; 
(3) Reason. 


(i) S. Matt. 


xix. 9. 


Evidence 
available. 


1d? HOLY MATRIMONY 


character of Christian marriage is hopelessly surrendered. 
One or other answer must be given. From what has already 
been said in previous chapters it will have appeared that the 
answer which as a result of this investigation we shall feel 
justified in giving is the answer that marriage is indissoluble in 
its own essential character, and that divorce from the bond of 
marriage is always and in every case inadmissible. The 
investigation will include appeals to the three great sources of 
Theology, viz. (1) Holy Scripture, (2) the Church in History, 
and (9) Reason. 
1. HOLY SCRIPTURE. 


(i.) S. Matt. xix. 9. The most important, as it is the most 
difficult, text on the subject of divorce is ὃ. Matthew xix. 9, 
which with its context is here given from the Textus Receptus 
and from the Authorised Version: 
“Ti οὖν Μωσῆς 7 They say unto him, Why did 


, ’ ἐν 
Λέγουσιν αὐτῷ, 


ἐνετείλατο δοῦναι βιβλίον ἀποστασίου 
καὶ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν 3” 

Λέγει αὐτῦις, “ὅτι Μωσῆς πρὸς τὴν 
σκληροκαρδίαν ἐπέτρεψεν ὑμῖν 
ἀπολῦσαι τὰς γυναῖκας ὑμῶν" aw ἀρχῆς 


ὑμῶν 


δὲ οὐ γέγονεν οὕτω. 

Λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι ὅς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν 
γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ, καὶ 
γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται" 
λελυμένην γαμήσας μοιχᾶται. 


καὶ ὁ ἀπο- 


Moses then command to give a writing 
of divorcement, and to put her away ? 

8 He saith unto them, Moses be- 
cause of the hardness of your hearts 
suffered you to put away your wives: 
but from the beginning it was not so. 

9 And I say unto you, Whosoever 
shall put away his wife, except ὁ be 
for fornication, and shall marry 
another, committeth adultery: and 
whoso marrieth her which is put 
away doth commit adultery. 


If this passage is not found to admit divorce, with the right 
of re-marriage, it cannot be said of any other passage in the 
New Testament that it necessarily makes that admission. On 
the other hand, if this passage is understood to admit such 
divorce, there are other passages which may doubtless be read 
with ib. 

(a) Diyiculties of the Text. The first difficulty to overcome 
is the settlement of the text. Unfortunately the text is subject 
to extraordinary variations. These variations we will proceed 
to indicate. 

For the establishment of the text of any passage of the 
New Testament recourse is had to three different sets of 
documentary authorities. First are the Greek manuscripts 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 19 


of various ages which have come down to us. Of these the _ 
earlier, written throughout in capital letters, are known as Documen- 
Uncial manuscripts; and the later, written in a smaller @¥. 
character, and as it were with a “running hand,” are known (ἃ) Mam. 
as Cursives. Secondly, the versions or translations of the New src 
Testament into languages other than Greek are many of them 

of a high antiquity, and are often of great value for critical 
purposes, as indicating the reading of the Greek text from 

which they are translations, or the contemporary explanation 

of a difficult Greek passage. In the third place come the G) Fathers. 
Fathers and ancient writers, who quote various passages of 

Holy Scripture in their works, and so bear testimony to the 
readings current in their day. These three sets of authorities 

—(1) the Manuscripts, (2) the Versions, and (3) the Fathers— 
constitute the Documentary Evidence available for the deter- 
mination of the text. To this Documentary Evidence have to (β) 


be added the inferences arising from Jnternal Evidence. septa 
vidence, 


(a) DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE. 
(1) Manuscripts. 


The readings of the principal uncial manuscripts may be 
given at length. 


s. Codex Sinaiticus, the MS. discovered by Tischendorf in 
the Convent of 8. Catharine on Mount Sinai. It is ascribed to 
the middle of the fourth century. 


[ Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus Auspiciis Augustissimis 
Imperatoris Alexander II ex tenebris protraxit in Europam 
transtulit ad juvandas atque illustrandas sacras litteras edidit 
Constantinus Tischendorf. Petropoli, 1862. ] 


TONENOTTMCAE And 1 say unto you that whosoever 
TwACTMINOTIO shall put away his wife except for 
CANATIOATCHTH fornication, and shall marry another, 
TYNEKAATTOTMH ‘ MOIXATE (same as MOIXATAT) = 
EIIIMOPNIAKAITA 1. committeth adultery, or 2. causes 
MHCHAAAHN Mol (some one to commit) adultery, or 
XATE 3. brings about adultery. 

AGLTOTCINOIMAOH [The clause and whoso marricth 


her which is put away doth commit 
adultery is wanting. ] 


154 HOLY MATRIMONY 


B. Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican Library at Rome, “is 
perhaps the oldest vellum manuscript in existence.” It is 
commonly assigned to the fourth century, and may be a few 
years older than the Codex Sinaiticus. 


[Bibliorum Sacrorum Graecus Codex Vaticanus auspice Pio IX: 
Pontifice Maximo collatis studiis Caroli Vercellone Sodalis 
Barnabitae et Josephi Cozza Monachi Basiliani editis. Romae, 
typis et impensis S. Congregationis de propaganda fide curante 
eq. Petro Marietti socio admin. ANNO MpcccLxvu. (Tomus v.)] 


XHCACOTTETONENOTTwe 


ACT wACTMINOCANATI° And I say unto you that who- 
ATCHTHNIT'YNAIKAATTOL soever shall put away his wife 
TIAPEKTOCAOLTOTITOPXE! saving for the cause of fornication 
ACIIOICIATTHN MOIX£Y causeth her to commit adultery, 
OHNAIKAIOATOAGCATHE and he who hath married a woman 
NHNT'AMHCACMOIXATAI put away MOIXATATI. 


AGCLOTCINATTMOIMAOH 


C. Codex Ephraemi, in the Royal Library of Paris, contains 
fragments of every part of the New Testament, and among 
them a fragment containing the passage under review. It 
probably belongs to the fifth century. It contains corrections 
by two subsequent hands. 


[Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus, sive Fragmenta Novi Testamenti 
e codice graeco parisiensi celeberrimo quinti ut videtur post 
Christum seculi eruit atque edidit Constantinus Tischendorf. 
Lipsiae. Sumptibus et Typis Bern. Tauchnitz jun. mpcccx ut. | 


TMOQN + AITAPXHZAEOTTETONENOTTOZ® ° 
AETOQAETMINOTIOSEANATIOATSHTHNIYNAIKAAY 
ΤΟΥΜΗΒΠΙΠΟΡΝΕΙΑ " KAITAMHSHAAAHNILOIEIAYTTH 
MOIXEYTOHNAT: 
KATOATIOAEATMENHNTAMONMOIXATAT* AETOTZIN 


And I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except 
for fornication, and shall marry another, causeth her to commit 
adultery, and he who marrieth a woman put away MOIXATAI. 


TISCHENDORF’S NoTsEs on (Ὁ. 
(Pag. 88. Vers. 39-41.) 
“Diu me exercuere notae manus tertiae. Videlicet litterae IL in 


Y 
IIOIEI duo ductus addidit, quo fere II facta est. Porro super QN 


——— 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 155 


in TAMON duo puncta posuit, scripsitque spatio vacuo inter ILOIEI 
versus 39 et ΓΑΜΩΝ versus 41. MYXATE (idem quod MOIXATAIT) 


=H 


Looe: | 

praefixa nota AP. Quae omnia sic explicuerim: Prima nota significat 
YIIEPBA et duo puncta indicant finem eorum verborum quae prae- 
termitti volebat ; APHOY vero praeposuit verbo MYXATE quum ab 
hoc verbo denuo, praetermissis praetermittendis, incipiendum esset. 
Voluit igitur, si recte vidi, ut rem breviter repetam, omitti in lectione 
verba IIOIKEI ΑὙΤῊΝ MOIXEYOHNAIL KAI O ATIOAEAY- 
MENHN TAMH*A>. Confirmat autem conjecturam meam hoc, 
quod haec ipsa verba a multis testibus (etiam ab LEvangelistariis) 
revera omittuntur.” 


Accordingly the third hand must be understood to read: 


And I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except for forni- 
cation, and shall marry another, MOIXATAT, 


D. Codex Bezae, in the University Library at Cambridge. It 
is ascribed to the early part of the sixth century. 


[Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, being an exact copy, in ordinary 
type, of the celebrated uncial Graeco-Latin manuscript of the 
four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, written early in the 
sixth century, and presented to the University of Cambridge by 
Theodore Beza a.p. 1581, edited with A critical introduction, 
annotations, and facsimiles by Frederick H. Scrivener, M.a., 
Rector of S. Gerran’s, Cornwall. Cambridge, 1864. ] 


amapxns δε οὐκ εΎενεΤΟ OUTWS 

λεγω δὲ ὕμειν "ος αν ἀπολυσὴ τὴν γυναικα 
αὐτου ᾿παρεκτος λογου πορνειᾶς 

και yaunon adrAnv μοιχαται 

λεγουσιν avTw οἱ μαθηται αὐτου 


ab initio autem non fuit sic 

dico autem vobis+ quicumque dimiserit uxore 
suam + excepta ratione adulterii 

et duxerit aliam moechatur 

dicunt ei discipuli eius 


And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for 
the cause of fornication, and shall marry another, MOIXATAI. [The 
second clause wanting. ] 


Other 
MSS. 


156 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Iq, Codex Tischendorfianus II (Codex Armeniacus) is one of 
several palimpsest fragments collected by Tischendorf. It is 


ascribed to the sixth century. 


|Fragmenta Sacra Palimpsesta sive Fragmenta cum Novi tum 
Veteris Testamenti ex quinque Codicibus Graecis Palimpsestis 


Antiquissimis nuper in Oriente repertis &c. Afnoth. Frideric. 
Constantinus Tischendorf. Lipsiae, 1855, ] 


OTT WC * 

ACTMACTMIN And I say unto you that who- 
OTIOCANATIO soever shall put away his wife 
ATCHTHNTY except for fornication, and shall 
NAIKAATTOY marry another, MOIXATAT, And 
MHEMINOPNIA he who marrieth a woman put 
KAITAMHCHAA away MOIXATAI. 
AHNMOIXATAT 
KAIOATIOAECAYT 
MENHNTAM® 
MOIXATAT* 

ACTOTCINATTH 


The remaining uncial manuscripts containing the passage are 
of later date. Among the cursive manuscripts the majority 
contain the clause καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry another. 
Of the more important cursives 1 (Codex Basiliensis A.N. iv. 2, 
at Basle) and 4 (Codex Regius 84 at Paris) agree with those 
uncial manuscripts which omit καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην and shall 
marry another, and have ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι causeth her to 
commit adultery in place of μοιχῶται. 


(2) Versions. 


The Syriac Peshitto and the Old Latin are the most ancient 
and for our purpose the most important of the versions or 
translations of the New Testament into other languages. The 
Syriac Peshitto probably dates from the second century; and 
the Old Latin is commonly assigned to the same period. The 
principal Egyptian versions, the Memphitic and the Thebaic, or 
at least parts of them, may date from before the close of the 
second century.t. The remaining versions are all assigned to 
later dates when, so far as our present enquiry is concerned, 


1 Scrivener, Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 3rd edition, 
p. 371. 





᾿ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 157 


the Greek text itself was certainly involved in considerable 
variations. The versions made thus late are not therefore of 
much assistance in determining the original text. Such are the 
Ethiopic (4th cent.), the Vulgate (A.D. 383), the Armenian 
(5th cent.), the Gothic (4th cent.), and the later Syriae versions 
(508 A.D., 616 A.D.). 

Syriac Versions. The following readings from the Syriac 
versions are due to the kindness of the well-known Syriac 
scholar, the Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, of Jesus College, Oxford. 
He says :? 

“Τὴ 8. Matthew xix. 9 we have 

“(1) Peshitto. ‘Whosoever putteth away his wife without 
adultery, and taketh another, committeth adultery ; and whosoever 
taketh the woman put away committeth adultery.’ 

“«(2) Harclean. ‘Whosoever shall divorce the wife of hin, 
except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery ; 
and he who marrieth the woman put away, committeth adultery.’ 

‘“*(3) Curetonian. ‘Whosoever putteth away his wife, without 
reason of adultery, and taketh another, surely committeth adultery 
towards her’ (omitting remainder of verse).” 


Old Latin Versions. The Old Latin versions, with the 
exception of ff'; also contain translations of the clause καὶ 
γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and understand μοιχᾶται to mean commits 
adultery. On the other hand, ff! follows B and the other 
manuscripts which omit the clause καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and in 
place of μοιχᾶται read ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 

Egyptian Versions. The two principal Egyptian versions are 
(1) the Memphitic, or Lower Egypt dialect of Coptic, and (2) 
the Sahidice or Thebaic, the Upper Egypt dialect of the same 
language. 

(1) The Memphitic Version (ed. M. αὐ. Schwartze, Lipsiae, 
1846). 


‘‘And I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except for 
fornication, causeth her procreare ; and whosoever marrieth her which is put 
away doth commit adultery.” 


(2) The Sahidic Version (ed. Woide, Oxford, 1799). 


‘And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife without ground of 
fornication, and shall abide with another, is an adulterer.” 


2 In a letter to the writer. 


158 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Thus the Memphitic version! omits the clause “and shall 
marry another,” and translates evidently from ποιξὶ αὐτὴν 
μοιχευθῆναι (or μοιχᾶσθαι) “causeth her procreare.” The 
Memphitic version also has the clause “and whoso marrieth 
her which is put away doth commit adultery.” The Sahidic 
version, on the other hand, reads, “and shall marry another, 
committeth adultery,’ and there stops. 


(3) Kathers. 


As with the Versions, so with the Fathers, it is of no great 
service to refer to any of date later than the third century. 
The writers of the first three centuries who quote the passage 
appear to be only three—Origen, 8. Clement of Alexandria, and 
Athenagoras. : 

ORIGEN. 
Commentary on S. Matthew. 

Τάχα δὲ τῶν τολμώντων τις ᾿Ιουδαΐκος ἀνὴρ ἐναντιοῦσθαι τῇ τοῦ 
Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν διδασκαλίᾳ, φήσει, ὅτι καὶ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς, εἰπών: “Os ἂν 
ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὗὑτου παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν 
μοιχευθῆναι owe Lae 

(The text is cited in the same words three times.) 


S. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, 
Stromata, lib. 11. cap. 23.? 
Ὃ δὲ ἀπολελυμένην λαμβάνων γυναῖκα μοιχᾶται, φησίν" ἐὰν γάρ τις 
ἀπολύσῃ γυναῖκα, μοιχᾶται αὐτὴν, τουτέστιν, ἀναγκάζει μοιχευθῆναι. 


πριν Ca eae: 
Τί δὲ ἐστιν ὅπερ 6 κύριος εἶπε πρὸς τοὺς περὶ τοῦ ἀποστασίου 
7 > » > O~ lal oe ΤῸΝ 5 , 
πυνθανομένους, Εἰ ἔξεστιν ἀπολῦσαι γυναῖκα, Mwvoews ἐπιτρέψαντος. 
Πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν, φησὶν, ὁ Μωύσῆς ταῦτα ἔγραφεν" ὑμεῖς 
δὲ οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε, ὅτι τῷ πρωτοπλάστῳ ὁ Θεὸς εἶπεν ἔσεσθε οἱ δύο εἰς 
σάρκα μίαν. “Ὥστε ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα χωρὶς λόγου πορνείας 
ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆγναι. 
ATHENAGORAS. 
Legatio pro Christianis, § 33.4 
eo x “1 5 Ἢ Ν ν A [ὦ lal Ρ XV , ” 
Os yap av ἀπολύσῃ, φησὶ, τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, 
a 5 ϑ 1g Ὁ 3 , 
μοιχᾶται" οὔτε ἀπολύειν ἐπιτρέπων ἧς ἔπαυσέ Tis τὴν παρθενίαν, οὔτε 
ἐπιγαμεῖν. 


1 At least in the MSS. employed by Schwartze. 
2 Migne’s Βα, pp. 1096, 1097. 3 Ibid. p. 1150. 4 Ibid. p. 365. 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 159 


Origen (A.D. 185-251), in his commentary on 8. Matthew, origen. 
ch. xix., quotes v. 9 no less than three times in exactly the 
same words, which may thus be reasonably taken to represent 
the manuscript which he used. He reads: ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν 
γυναῖκα avTou παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ ἀντὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 
Thus he omits the clause and shall marry another, and employs 
the reading of B, causeth her to commit adultery. He appears 
to know nothing of the after clause, and whoso marreeth her 
which is put away doth commit adultery. 

Ὁ. Clement of Alexandria (at the catechetical school, A.D. Ὁ Clement 
190-203) does not quote the passage, as Origen does, in the ἃ epic. 
course of a commentary, but in his Miscellanies (Stromata). 
He transposes the parts of the verse, quoting the second part 
of the verse in his argument, and then going on to cite the 
first part as his authority for it. He writes: ‘O δὲ ἀπολελυμένην 
λαμβάνων γυναῖκα μοιχᾶται, φησίν" ἐὰν yap τις ἀπολύσῃ γυναῖκα, 
μοιχᾶται αὐτὴν, τουτέστιν, ἀναγκάζει μοιχευθῆναι. “‘He that 
receiveth a woman put away, committeth adultery, saith He. 
For, ‘if one put away his wife, he maketh her an adulteress,’ 
that is, compelleth her to commit adultery.” 8. Clement 
may probably be quoting freely and from memory; and it 
is necessary to enquire from which of the three verses, (1) 
S. Matthew v. 32, (2) 8. Matthew xix. 9, (3) 5. Luke xvi. 18, 
he is quoting. 

The words do not correspond with 8. Luke xvi. 18, which 
reads ὁ ἀπολύων, uses the word μοιχεύει, and retains the clause 
γαμῶν ἑτέραν. They do not correspond with 8. Matthew v. 382, 
which reads not μοιχᾶται, but ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχᾶσθαι. They 
do correspond with 5. Matthew xix. 9, as far as they go, but 
have neither of the two clauses except for fornication, and and 
shall marry another. It may be said to be fairly certain on the 
whole that 8. Clement is quoting S. Matthew xix. 9. He reads 
μοιχᾶται, but understands it as μοιχᾶται αὐτὴν, causeth her to 
commit adultery. This interpretation is strong evidence that 
his text did not have the words and shall marry another, which 
are redundant to the sense; whether the clause except for 
fornication was also missing from 8. Clement’s text, or merely 
omitted in a not too exact quotation, can hardly be decided. 








Athena- 
goras. 


Tabular 
statement. 


160 HOLY MATRIMONY 


In considering the question of S. Clement’s text it should 
not, however, be overlooked that in the next book (2b. 111.) of 
his Miscellanies he makes another loose reference which appears 
to refer to S. Matthew xix. The whole passage is at once 
abridged and paraphrased. He on this occasion employs the 
phrase ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. If this be taken as a quotation, 
it would seem that S. Clement was familiar with both the 
readings in dispute. 

Athenagoras (0. 177 A.D.) has the word μοιχᾶται, and the 
clause and shall marry another, but does not cite the clause 
except for fornication. 

The whole of the documentary evidence which may be 
considered of value for the determination of the true reading 
of S. Matthew xix. 9 has now been passed in review. The 
tabular statement which follows will assist the reader to 


‘appreciate it. 





101 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 


"{UIULITO ἡ 10 
seloovuoyyy 


&q poyonb yon 


“SOUTT} 5 
000) UL WASTIC 





᾿ΒΘΤΙΠΊ 9 "eg ΟΠ 
0007 U2 WASTIC, | ‘svlosevueyy VY 


[Ὁ THE “μον, | "eg “TE “wo.ag 
ul 41} 


ὙΘΙΨ “WD Ὁ] “ΧΘΙΨ τὰ910 Ὁ 

















‘orn duro TY hess 
ἽΠΊ1ΒΓ PIO 
ey 15011 
owtahg ΠΥ͂ 
Al 
d 
30) 
Ὁ 
4 
N 
‘mal. gasX10n1 SY yori 


altny 1370L 
DS eng 





“OIPIYRY orgy uno yy 
"UBOTOIR FT 
ὃ οδταΐᾳ 
τιΒΤΟ] 91 Π 0 : 
oe1tXg Ὁ27ΤΠ594 oRTIhg 
Al 
al *(7L0X107/ 
.“) amv akarr 
-AYIYOLD 109) ἢ 
a 
XN 
ἍΠππ0Ὸ ἽΠΠΟΙ 
Ἵ0.ὈΧΊΟΥΙ 


50. ΟἰυὙἹ]Ὸ ΛΔ, akagaysyoun 0 


10M 


a \ 


v 








*malgnsXion! align 1370.L 
10 70.ὉΧΊΟΥΙ 


8 








"ee ὍΟ 


ΘΒΔΟΘΒΙΘΠΊΥ |G 0002 Ut WaStIO 


"EZ “IL “wmouggy 
ul 


‘XOTV ἼΠ910 'g 








"6g “oT 
‘seloovuoyyV 
‘xoTV Ἰπ910 Ὁ 
ΒΘΌΤΠΠ & 
090) U2 WAST 
‘orgy une] “OIplyyes 
ἽΠΊ1ΒΠ PIO 
1H 15017 
ely ITV 
Mm 
(lL 
1) 
0 
d 
XN 
ἍτιπῸ “UIRIOY 


‘alyyy Lolurind yx 


G 











Ἅππο 














‘spjaadou nohoy 
SoLnadpu “Θ091Π11) 


(‘sn73Adou ποίου 
sido. “Α199.1 A104 





sajonb ey “998 

-ssed 5171 surjyoub 

98 9 Huong 

Ul ΧΘΙ͂Υ͂ “We[O ‘g) SUTHLV α΄ 
"AA θα ΠῚ | ° ° SNOISUHA 


FI 


*(sn73ado.u 


ποίου soLxadnu) 4 


ε0 
4) 


δηγϑασο.ν 


nohoy 59..90.) J 


N 


* SLdIWOSONVIV 





ἽὝΠΒ2ΘΗ 


"Ῥηγηϑλσοιν γμ3. Lint 


T 


Ὁ “XIX “LEIVW ‘S WOH AONAGIAT AUVINAWADOd 'IVdIONIYd AHL HO CINAWHLVIS AV TINE Vo 





Suggested 
text, 


162 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(8) Internal Evidence. It would appear to follow that where 
the documentary evidence is so divided, the only conclusion 
which can be drawn is that no certainty as to the true text is 
now available, and that accordingly for purposes of doctrine 1b 
is undesirable to make use of the passage. This practical 
conclusion will, in fact, be here adopted. It may, however, be 
worth while to ask whether any theory can explain the 
remarkable diversity of readings which we find. The following 
explanation is suggested. Let it be supposed that the text 
commonly current in the third century, whether the original 
text or not, ran thus: 


r ’ δὲ ἘΣ ad nx 2 Ν » \ cn ’ a oe eA Le 
eYw E UMLV, OF AV ἀπολυσῇ τὴν Yvuvatka αὐτου μῆ ETL πορνεία 
μοιχαται. 


And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except 
wt be for fornication, μοιχᾶται, and that the passage thus 
ended. The word μοιχᾶται in this passage is of obscure 
signification. One probable meaning would perhaps be the 
meaning which the word has when taken as a reflexive middle, 
adulterously pollutes himself, commits adultery; and this is 
certainly the force of the word in certain passages of the 
Septuagint, and probably its force in some passages of the New 
Testament. Another meaning is the meaning which commended 
itself to S. Clement of Alexandria, who takes the word as a 
causative. 8. Clement says, μοιχᾶται αὐτήν, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν, 
ἀναγκάζει μοιχευθῆναι (μοιχᾶται her, that is, he compels her 
to commit adultery). In neither sense is the word satisfactorily 
clear in the passage as conjecturally given above. If the 
reflexive middle commits adultery gives the meaning, why, it 
would naturally be asked, does the commission of adultery 
result? It clearly does not result unless the man form a 
connexion with another woman. On the other hand, if 
μοιχᾶται 15 to be read, with 8. Clement, in a directly causative 
sense with the wife for its object, the text seems to need αὐτήν, 
or some word of similar indication to make it clear. There 
would therefore be every inducement to supply explanation by 
means of glosses in the margin; the best of all glosses being 
parallel passages from the Gospels themselves. Now there are 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 


163 


two passages which at once present themselves for such a 


purpose. 
ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων 
τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας 


μοιχᾶσθαι | 
ποιεῖ αὐτὴν jorxevOjvacs* καὶ ds ἐὰν 


There is first the passage 8. Matthew v. 32: 


But I say unto you, That whosoever 
shall put away his wife, saving for the 


cause of fornication, causeth her to 


ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσῃ μοιχᾶται. commit adultery ; and whosoever shall 
marry her that is divorced committeth 


adultery. 


The other passage is 8. Luke xvi. 18: 


πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ Kal Whosoever putteth away his wife, 
and marrieth another, committeth 
adultery ; and whosoever marrieth her 
that is put away from her husband 


committeth adultery. 


- 


γαμῶν ἑτέραν μοιχεύει: καὶ πᾶς ὁ 


ἀπολελυμένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς γαμῶν μοιχεύει. 


Those scribes who understood μοιχᾶται in the reflexive 
middle sense, commits adultery, would quote the latter passage, 
with its καὶ γαμῶν ἑτέραν, and marrieth another, as explaining 
how it came about that the man would commit adultery ; while 
they might or might not go on to complete the reference by 
quoting the clause, and whosoever marrieth her that is put away 
from her husband committeth adultery. 

A later scribe, incorporating these glosses into the text in 
such a way as to preserve the grammatical unities, and assimilate 
the words employed to their new context, would give us very 
much what we have in the Textus Receptus. 

Enquiring now whether the authorities which have the 
passage καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry another, are the same 
with those which have μοιχᾶται, we have the following results : 


AUTHORITIES WHICH READ AUTHORITIES WHICH READ 


καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην. μοιχᾶται. 
MSS. . . SCC#D Ia SC? Ὁ Τὰ 
VV. .. . . | All Syriac, most Old Latin, | All Syriac, most Old Latin, 
Sahidic. Sahidic. 
Fathers . . Athenagoras. Athenagoras, S. Clement Alex. 





It thus appears that, speaking generally, the authorities 
which retain μοιχᾶται explain it by καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην. 


M 2 


164 HOLY MATRIMONY 


If, however, μοιχᾶται be taken in a causative sense, the gloss 
employed would naturally be 8. Matthew v. 82: πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων 
τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας ποιεῖ αὐτὴν 
μοιχευθῆναι, Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the 
cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. Later 
scribes incorporating the glosses would some of them substitute 
ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, causeth her to commit adultery, for 
μοιχᾶται, as more obviously intelligible; while others would 
embody the whole six words, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας ποιεῖ 
αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth 
her to commit adultery, omitting the μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ, except for 
fornication, of the original text, as well as the μοιχᾶται. 
These scribes again might or might not adopt the later clause, 
καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσῃ μοιχᾶται, and whosoever shall 
marry her that is divorced μοιχᾶται. 

If we now ask whether the authorities which omit καὶ 
γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry another, are in fact the same 
which have ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, causeth her to commit 
adultery, we have the following results: 





AUTHORITIES WHICH OMIT AUTHORITIES WHICH READ 
καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην. ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 
MSS #5." 826 B BC 
ιν ns. bc ff!, Memphitic. ΠῚ, Memphitic. 
Fathers . . . | Origen (3 times), [S. Clement | Origen (3 times), [S. Clem. 
of Alex. in Strom. ii. 23]. Alex. in Strom. 111. 6]. 





Again the authorities are practically the same. 

The text suggested above is not therefore of the more general 
type of either of the two groups of manuscripts, for it omits 
καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry another, while it retains 
μοιχᾶται. It is not however a conjectural text in the sense in 
which the word conjectwral is technically used. Not only is 
there high manuscript authority at.once for every word retained 
and for every omission made, but it appears fairly certain that 
the retention of μοιχᾶται along with the omission of καὶ 


γαμήσῃ ἄλλην characterized at least one of the manuscripts | 


made use of by Ὁ. Clement of Alexandria. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 165 


The text suggested may next be subjected to the recognised This text 
canons of Internal Evidence. These have been collected by subjected 
Scrivener under seven heads. canoe. δ 

1. Prochivt Θογίρίϊογυ praestat ardua—the more difficult the Evidence. 
reading, the more likely it is to be genuine. The reading 
suggested is difficult because the word μοιχᾶται remains 
unexplained; and the word μοιχᾶται is known to have 
presented such difficulty in ancient times to readers whose 
vernacular was Greek, that one group understood it to mean 
commits adultery, while at least S. Clement of Alexandria 
understood it to mean causes to commit adultery. The reading 
therefore has in its favour the preference due to the more 
difficult reading. 

2. “That reading out of several is preferable, from which all 
the rest may have been derived, although it could not be derived 
from any of them.” How existing readings might take their 
rise from the reading suggested has been indicated, and there 
is evidently no facility for the reverse process. 

ὃ. “Drevior lectio, nisi testuum vetustorum et gravium auctoritate 
penitus destituatur, preferenda est verbosiort. Lrbraria enim 
multo prontores ad addendum fuerunt, quam ad omittendum.” 1 
“The shorter reading is to be preferred to the more wordy, 
unless it be altogether wanting in the authority of ancient and 
weighty witnesses. For copyists have been much more prone 
to add than to omit.” In the present case the suggested reading 
is the shortest. 

4, “That reading of a passage is preferable which best suits 
the peculiar style, manner, and habits of thought of an author, 
it being the tendency of copyists to overlook the idiosyncracies 
of the writer.” 

Under this head may be brought the fact which appeared of 
so much importance to Keble, that 8S. Matthew’s gospel was a 
gospel for the Jews, and is recording here the answer to a 
question made specially by Jews. The question concerned 
putting away a wife, and did not concern marrying another; it 
presumably concerned a polygamist in his putting away of a 
wife as much as a monogamist in like case, and thus excluded 





1 Griesbach N.T. Proleg. Ὁ. lxiv. vol. i. 


166 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the idea of adultery on the part of the man. It was in fact 
only concerned with divorce by the man, and not at all with 
the question of other relations possible to him. If therefore 
the answer simply replied to the question which δ. Matthew’s 
- Gospel records, the phrase καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry 
another, is rendered so far unlikely by travelling outside the 
limits of the question; and any reading which, omitting this 
clause, could give the meaning “causes to commit adultery,” or 
“is responsible for adultery,’ would be so far more natural. 
Doubtless, on the other hand, our Lord might have chosen to 
emphasize a side of truth, which His questioners so entirely 
overlooked. 

5. “ Attention must be paid to the genius and usage of each 
several authority, in assigning the weight due to it in a par- 
ticular instance. Thus the testimony of Cod. B is of the less 
influence in omissions, that of Cod. D (Bezae) in additions, 
inasmuch as the tendency of the former is to abridge, that of 
the latter to amplify, the sacred text.” Considerations of this 
character would in the case before us be of more value as 
regards the second half of the verse than the first. 

6. “Inter plures unius loci lectiones, ea pro suspecta merrto 
habetur, quae orthodvxorum dogmatibus manifeste prae ceteris 
Javet.” This canon, taken from Griesbach, receives little favour 
from Scrivener, and will receive as little from all those who 
look for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the history of 
the Church. Such as it is, if would tell against our hypo- 
thetical reading, for, as we shall presently see, remarriage after. 
divorce found no favour with the Church of the first three 
eenturies. 

7. “* Apparent probabilities of erroneous transcription, per- 
mutation of letters, itacism and so forth, have been described 
by Bp. Ellicott ‘paradiplomatic evidence, as distinguished 
from the ‘diplomatic’ testimony of codices, versions, &e.” 

Under this head may be noticed the recurrence, as in the 
Textus Receptus, of the word μοιχᾶται. The omission of the 
second part of the verse may thus be due to a copyist’s error; 
but the various readings of the whole passage point rather to 
the interpolation of the words in some manuscripts by way 


1 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 167 


of gloss, than to their omission in others by an error of the 
copyist. 

Summing up the results of this examination of the Internal 
Evidence, it will be seen that the reading suggested satisfies all 
the more important canons of such evidence. 

It thus appears that a fairly strong case can be made out to Conclusion. 
shew that the original reading from which all existing readings 1 χε (0? 


uncertain 
were derived was a reading which may not contemplate re- for employ- 


marriage after divorce; it is certain that some MSS. of high une 
authority have readings which do not contemplate any such 
remarriage; and it is further certain that the text is so variously 
read as to make it in the highest degree inexpedient to base 
any argument of important bearing upon any of its readings. 
The proper course appears to be to put aside S. Matt. xix. 9, 
and to direct the enquiry to (1) other passages of Holy Scrip- 
ture, (2) the testimony of the Church in history, and (3) the 
necessary conclusions of Reason. 

(Ὁ) Hxplanations which have been given of the TEXTUS RECEPTUS. 

Before, however, proceeding to thus direct our enquiry, it 
will be well to pause and notice the explanations which are 
commonly given of the verse, supposing the reading of the 
Textus Receptus and of the Authorized Version to be the right 
one. If minor comments be disregarded, the explanations of 
the verse may be said to be mainly three, which may be called 
(a) Keble’s, (8) von Déllinger’s, and (y) the Concession views. 

(a) Keble’s view. Keble lays much stress on the fact that the 
words were addressed by our Lord not to His own followers, 
but to the Jews. He was teaching the “multitudes,” and 
while so teaching them was approached by the Pharisees, who 
asked which of two views concerning the scope of the Mosaic 
concession of divorce was the correct one. “Our Lord then 
might be very well understood to be giving His warrant to one 
of two interpretations, both which had more or less of Rabbinical 
authority.” According to this view, then, our Lord’s words 
were simply an interpretation of the Mosaic concession, and 
only concerned the Jews. When addressing His own disciples 


1 Keble. An Argument against immediately repealing the laws which treat the 
Nuptial Bond as indissoluble. 2nd. ed. 1867 p. 15. 


168 HOLY MATRIMONY 


He admitted no such concessions as available for them. And 
in interpreting the Mosaic provision our Lord distinctly pointed 
out that even that was “entirely relative to their σκληροκαρδία; 
i.e. (taking the phrase literally) to the impossibility of making 
an impression upon them. From which it would follow that in 
any Divine Ciconomy, which provided an effectual remedy for 
that σκληροκαρδία, the permission to divorce would wholly 
cease, and the Law return to what it had been in the 
beginning.” 4 

Keble admits that “the real difficulty of this argument les 
in the seeming want of ancient consent.” ? 

(8) Von Déllinger’s View. Von Dollinger, while apparently 
understanding our Lord’s words to refer not merely to the 
Jews, but to Christians also, is of opinion that the one conceded 
ground of divorce, πορνεία, has no reference to adultery or 
post-nuptial sin, but must be understood to be confined to 
pre-nuptial unchastity. 


“Tlopveta always means incontinence in the unmarried, never, 
whether in the New Testament, or the Septuagint, or in profane 
authors, adultery. Thus πορνεία and μοιχεία are always distinguished, 
as in Matt. xv. 19; Mark vii. 21; and the adulteress in John viii. 3 
is called ἐν μοιχείᾳ κατειλημμένην. There is no ground for making 
πορνεία a general term including adultery; when more than simple 
fornication is meant, either μοιχεία or ἀκαθαρσία is used with it, as 
in, Mark vil 21+ 52, Cor ais 2] (ταῖν, 19s playin ec Oe 
Heb. xii. 4. And Meyer, in proof of his view that πορνεία in Matt. 
v. 32 means adultery, can only cite two passages, John vil. 41, and 
1 Cor. v. 1. In the former the Jews say, ‘We be not born of 
fornication, we have one Father, even Gop’; in the latter Paul calls 
the cohabiting of a man with his father’s widow πορνεία, for there is 
no Greek word for incest, so he could only call a connexion which 
was no true marriage πορνεία. Both passages are further evidence 
that πορνεία is not adultery. So in the New Testament, both Hebrew 
and Septuagint, πορνεία (Heb. senut or tasnut) and μοιχεία (Heb. 
naphuph) are always distinguished; the last is never used of the 
unmarried, or the first of a wife. The one exception (Amos vii. 17) 
confirms the rule, for it says, ‘Thy wife shall be violated (πορνεύσει) 


1 Keble, An Argument, ὧδ. p. 13. 2 Ihid. p. 29. 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 169 


in the city,’ 1.6. by. force, which is not adultery.! Both words are 
put together in Ecclus. xxiii. 23, ἐν πορνείᾳ ἐμοιχεύθη, for emphasis.? 
Kuinol and others quote, besides Amos, Hosea iii. 3, where it is said 
of a wife called μοίχαλις before, καί ov μὴ πορνεύσῃς, but it is added, 
‘Thou shalt not be any man’s’? The woman was bought by the 
prophet as a slave, as a type of Israel; he does not marry her; she 
is his property, not his wife; meanwhile, she is to be continent, 
and πορνεύσῃς is properly used. The Greeks always urge that 
’ὔ - 
πορνεία, expressly excludes adultery, and is only used of the un- 
married. So Gregory of Nyssa says, πορνεία ἐστὶ καὶ λέγεται ἡ χωρίς 
3Q ἴω = vA 7 x “ 5 / 3 ΣᾺ 4 a = 
ἀδικίας ἑτέρου γενομένη τισὶ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας EexTAHpwors,* and Balsamon 
(p. 1048) πορνεία λέγεται ἡ χωρίς ἀδικίας ἑτέρου μίξις, ἥγουν ἡ πρὸς 
ἐλευθέραν ἁνδρὸς γυναῖκα. Only in Greek, as in all languages, πορνεία 
and πορνεύω are used of a wife who has become a common prostitute. 
Thus Dio Cassius (60, 31) says of Messalina, ὥσπερ οὐκ ἐξαρκοῦν ot 
δ Υ ) ρ ρ 

a ἍΝ 5 ΄ N.S 7, Ξ : 
OTL καί ἐμοιχεύετω καὶ ἐπορνεύετω, for she actually did both; she 
contracted adulterous ties, and she went to a regular house of ill 
fame. So Clement of Alexandria, when showing the analogy 
between fornication and idolatry, says of this sort of prostitution, ws 
> 74 2) Ae 3 in / 5 ΄, 5 Ν “A tat 
εἰδωλολατρεία ἐκ τοῦ ἕνος εἰς τοῦς πόλλους ἐπινέμησις ἐστὶ θεοῦ, οὕτως 
ἡἣ πορνεία ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς γαμοῦ εἰς τοὺς πόλλούς ἐστιν ἔκπτωσις," Where 
the comparison obliged him to give up the common meaning of πορνεία. 
Tholuck says πορνεία is used for μοιχεία in the Itala and by Ulfilas, 
but he is wrong. See Sabatier’s Edition of the Vetus Itala, which 
reads, exempta causa fornicationis, and so most manuscripts read as 
well as S. Jerome and 8. Augustine, who appeals to the agreement of 
those he knew.® Only two manuscripts of the Itala (Codd. Clarom. 
and Cantab.) render adulteriwm as Tertullian did before, and after 
him Zeno of Verona. 

‘But supposing πορνεία could be used for adultertwm, that does 
not explain why Christ or S. Matthew should have used the word, 


1 Both the authorized and revised English versions read: “Thy wife shall be 
an harlot in the city.” 

2 Authorized Version: ‘‘She hath played the whore in adultery.” 

3 Authorized Version: ‘‘Thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not 
be for another man.” 

Revised Version: ‘‘Thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be 
any man’s wife.” 

[4] Greg. Nyss. Hp. Can. tom. ii. p. 118. 

[>] Clem. Stromata, iii. p. 552, Ed. Potter. 

[6] S. Aug. De Conjugiis Adulterinis. 


170 HOLY MATRIMONY 


when it was essential to define accurately the one ground for dissolu- 
tion of marriage. Christ more than once uses μοιχεία here; what 
should have induced Him suddenly to change the word for ‘fornica- 
tion,’ if, as our opponents maintain, He meant adultery, and that 
only? Most prefer to pass over this difficulty in silence. De Wette, 
Gerlach, and Weiss say that it is because μοιχᾶσθαι is used in the 
same passage in a wider sense for the remarriage of a divorced wife. 
But that contradicts the obvious meaning of Christ. He calls 
marrying a second wife or a divorced wife most strictly and properly 
adultery ; and it is the right term, if marriage be indissoluble. The 
connection of a married man with another woman, or of a single 
man with a married woman, is then, not in a wider and improper, 


but in the strictest and most proper sense, porxeia.” ! 


In reply to the argument of the great German theologian 
it may be urged, first, that the one ground of divorce thus 
alleged to be sanctioned, viz., pre-nuptial unchastity, has never 
been recognised as a ground of divorce by the Christian 
Church ;? and next, that careful examination of the early 
Christian writers shews conclusively that they held πορνεία 
in this and the cognate passages to mean adultery.® 

(y) Lhe Concession View. That view may be so called which 
understands our Lord to concede to Christians the right of 
(1) divorce for adultery, coupled with (2) the right of remarriage 
after such divorce. If Keble’s view be rejected, and the words 
of 8. Matthew xix. 9 be held to apply to Christians; and if 
also von Dollinger’s view be rejected, the word πορνεία being 
taken to signify adultery or post-nuptial sin, the view that our 
Lord permits to Christians the rights of divorce for adultery 
and of remarriage after divorce seems a natural one. That 
Christians may divorce for adultery, in the sense of claiming 
separation of life, is indeed the continuous teaching of all 
Christian tradition; it is on the point of remarriage that 
the difficulty arises. If, however, the reading of the Textus 


1 Von Déllinger, The First Age of the Church, English Translation, Appendix. 

2 In the Eastern Churches unchastity in the woman after the solemn betrothal 
is a ground of divorce. See Zhishman, p. 737. The development after 
marriage of pregnancy resulting from pre-nuptial unchastity is also admitted 
in the East as a ground of divorce. Zhishman, p. 737. 

5 See p. 221, 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Lik 


receptus be the right one, and the views of Keble and 
von Déllinger be alike rejected, it does seem to follow that 
a man who divorces his wife for adultery on her part, and 
then marries another woman, is not, by so doing, himself 
guilty of adultery. 

But if this result follow from a natural interpretation of 
the first half of the verse, what is to be made of the second 
half—O ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσας μοιχᾶται, “He that marrieth 
a woman put away committeth adultery”? If this refer, as 
it has been commonly held to refer, to all divorced wives, 
not less those put away for adultery than their less guilty 
sisters, how can it be said that such divorced adulteresses 
commit adultery by remarriage, if their former husbands have 
been able to remarry without the commission of adultery ? 
Adultery, as Tertullian says, “is a crime incident to the 
marriage state”; and if it be possible in either partner, it 
must be because the bond of the marriage continues, and if 
this bond continue, then both are bound. Accordingly Alford? 
and some others hold that the word ἀπολελυμένην in the second 
half of the verse must be held not to include the divorced 
adulteress, who must be understood to have liberty to re- 
marry. That the word is not confined to the adulteress appears 
to be clear from the absence of the article (we should expect τὴν 
ἀπολελυμένην) ; but that the adulteress is to be excluded from 
its scope is merely a conjecture to support a foregone conclusion. 
It receives no support from Christian antiquity. It may be 
added that this difficulty remains, even if the second half of the 
verse be rejected. The similar teaching of 8. Matthew v. 32 
and of 8. Luke xvi. 18 has to be met. 

Passing by these three explanations, and reverting to the 
conclusion that the text of the passage is so corrupt that it 
cannot reasonably be depended on to establish any theory, we 
have next to notice the remaining passages of Holy Scripture 
which bear upon the subject of divorce and remarriage as 
possible to Christians. First must be cited the three re- 
maining utterances of our Lord, which are preserved in the 


Gospels. 





1 Jn loco. 


172 


(11... 5. Matthew v. 31, 32: 
31 ᾿Εῤῥέθη δὲ, ὅτι ὃς ἂν ᾿απολύσῃ τὴν 
γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, δότω αὐτῇ ἀποστάσιον. 


32 ᾿Εγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὃς ἂν 
ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ παρεκτὸς 
λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχᾶσθαι" 
κὰι ὃς ἐὰν ἀτολελυμένην γαμήσῃ, μοιχᾶ- 
ται. 


HOLY MATRIMONY 


31 It hath been said, Whosoever 
shall put away his wife, let him give 
her a writing of divorcement. 

32 But I say unto you, That whoso- 
ever shall put away his wife, saving 
for the cause of fornication, causeth 
her to commit adultery: and whoso- 
ever shall marry her that is divorced 


committeth adultery. 


In this passage it is implied that a man may put away his 
wife for πορνεία, but nothing is said about his marrying again. 
In the second half of verse 32, which asserts that “ whosoever 
shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery,” no 
exception is made of the divorced adulteress, Keble notes 
that the Sermon on the Mount, in which these words occur, 
was, like S. Matthew xix. 9, addressed not merely to the 
disciples, but to a Jewish audience ;! and he holds that, like 
S. Matthew xix. 9, it is to be regarded as an interpretation of 
the Mosaic provision. It is noticeable in this connexion that 
the remarriage of the man was by the Jews understood to be 
allowed, and that no question would be raised with regard to it. 
If however the passage be taken to express the higher morality 
of the Christian law, no inference favouring the remarriage of 
the man can be drawn from it, while the remarriage of the 





woman is expressly barred. 
(πὸ S. Mark x. 2-12: 


2 Kal προσελθόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἐπη- 
ρώτησαν αὐτὸν, εἰ ἔξεστιν ἀνδρὶ γυναῖκα 
ἀπολῦσαι, πειράζοντες αὐτόν. 

8. Ὃ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Τί 
ὑμῖν ἐνετείλατο Μωσῆς ; 

4 Οἱ δὲ Μωσῆς ἐπέτρεψε 
βιβλίον ἀποστασίου γράψαι, καὶ ἀπο- 
λῦσαι. 

5 Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ ᾿Τησοῦς εἶπεν αὐὖ- 
τοῖς, IIpds τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν 
ἔγραψεν ὑμῖν τὴν ἐντολὴν ταύτην" 

6 ᾿Απὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως, ἄρσεν καὶ 
θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεός. 


εἶπον, 





2 And the Pharisees came to him, 
and asked him, Is it lawful for a man 
to put away his wife? tempting him. 

3 And he answered and said unto 
them, What did Moses command you ? 

4 And they said, Moses suffered to 
write a bill of divorcement, and to 
put her away. 

5 And Jesus answered and _ said 
unto them, For the hardness of your 
heart he wrote you this precept. 

6 But from the beginning of the 
creation God made them male and 
female. 


1 <* When Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his 
doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority.” (S. Matt. vii. 28, 29.) 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY 


7 “Evexev τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος 
τὸν πατέρα αὑτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα" καὶ προσ- 
κολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, 

8 Καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 
ὥστε οὐκέτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ μία σάρξ. 


9 Ὃ οὖν ὁ Θεὸς συνέζευξεν, ἄνθρωπος 
μὴ χωριζέτω. 

10 Kal ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ πάλιν οἱ μαθηταὶ 
αὐτου περὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτόν. 

11 Kal λέγει αὐτοῖς, Ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολύσῃ 

\ an e “ \ , Ya 

THY γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ Kal γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, 
μοιχᾶται ἐπ᾽ αὐτήν" 


12 Καὶ ἐὰν γυνὴ ἀπολύσῃ τὸν ἄνδρα 


OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 173 

7 For this cause shall a man leave 
his father and mother, and cleave to 
his wife ; 

8 And they twain shall be one 
flesh: so then they are no more 
twain, but one flesh. 

9 What therefore God hath joined 
together, let not man put asunder. 

10 And in the house his disciples 
asked him again of the same matter. 

11 And he saith unto them, Who- 
soever shall put away his wife, and 
marry another, committeth adultery 
against her. 

12 And if a woman shall put away 
her husband, and be married to 


αὑτῆς καὶ γαμηθῇ ἄλλῳ, μοιχᾶται. 
another, she committeth adultery. 

In this passage, which may be taken as parallel with 
Ὁ. Matthew xix. 3-12, the verses 2-9, generally condemning 
divorce, were addressed to the Pharisees; while the explicit 
statements as to the adultery of persons remarrying after 
divorce, which are given in verses 11, 12, were addressed to the 
disciples “in the house.” In replying to the Pharisees, our 
Lord dealt only with “ putting away,” and not with remarriage. 
He fully admits the Mosaic “ precept,’ but states that it was 
given for the hardness of their hearts. The union was made 
by Gop, and man ought not to sever it. The one justification 
for putting away, elsewhere admitted, is not here noticed. In 
verses 11, 12, addressed to the disciples, it is taught that either 
husband or wife marrying again after divorcing the former 
partner is guilty of adultery; and no exception is made in any 
case whatsoever. The expression μοιχᾶται ἐπ᾿ αὐτήν, com- 
milteth adultery against her, or ws responsible for adultery with 
regard to her, is worthy of notice. If the ordinary translation, 
committeth adultery against her, be accepted, it follows that the 
sin of adultery is a sin committed against a man’s own wife. 
Now it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that this principle 
is a distinctively Christian principle. It was foreign even to 
the Roman mind, although the Romans were a monogamous 
people. By the Roman law a married man only committed 
adultery when he sinned with another man’s wife, and his 


174 HOLY MATRIMONY 


offence then was held to be not against his own wife, but 
against the man whose wife he had corrupted. In the case of 
a polygamous people this view is the only possible one. What 
Jew would for a moment have admitted that Abraham com- 
mitted adultery against Sarah when he took Hagar for a wife ? 
or that Jacob’s marriage with Rachel was adultery against 
Leah? And if there were no adultery in having Rachel for a 
wife together with Leah, how could the marriage with Rachel 
have become adulterous if Jacob had seen fit to divorce Leah ? 
Anyone acquainted with the polygamous peoples of the East 
will at once appreciate the force of this feeling. What Musul- 
man would consider a sexual act on his part, however otherwise 
deplorable, as adultery against his existing wives? It can 
hardly be open to doubt that our Lord’s teaching in this matter 
would be to any Jew startling in its novelty, and barely 
intelligible. 

It has been said that verses 11 and 12 were addressed to the 
disciples “in the house” after the Jewish audience had dis- 
persed. Their teaching may therefore be styled esoteric. It 
gives the fuller Christian explanation of a teaching felt to be 


difficult. Marriage is indissoluble, for one reason, because it is - 


exclusive. A man who divorces his wife and marries again 
sins against his one real wife. 


(iv.) S. Luke xvi. 18: 


Πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ Whosoever putteth away his wife, 
Kat γαμῶν ἑτέραν μοιχεύει" καὶ πᾶς ὁ and marrieth another, committeth 
ἀπολελυμένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς γαμῶν μοι- adultery: and whosoever marrieth her 
χεύει. that is put away from her husband 

committeth adultery. 


As in 8. Mark x. 11, 12, remarriage after divorce is here 
stigmatised as adultery, no exception being made in any case. 
It is not easy to say to whom these words were addressed. If 
they are to be taken as forming one discourse with verses 
15-17, they were addressed in rebuke to the Pharisees who 
“derided Him,’ and may be an instance of lofty teaching, 
employed less by way of argument than of judgment. If the 
words spoken to the Pharisees, and forming an interruption 
in the course of the teaching addressed to the disciples, are 


Sl lOO se ee eee 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE L175 


to be confined, as seems most probable, to the three verses 
15-17, then verse 18 would follow verse 13 and form part 
of an address delivered to “His disciples,’ though in the 
hearing of the Pharisees. In that case the verse may be 
taken, with 5. Mark x. 11, 12, to represent the teaching which 
was directly intended for the disciples of Christ. Both passages 
maintain that remarriage is adulterous as a result of the 


existing bond with the one real partner. 


(v.) Lom. vi. 1-4: 


Ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε, ἀδελφοὶ, (γιγνώσκουσι 
γὰρ νόμον λαλῶ) ὅτι ὁ νόμος κυριεύει τοῦ 
ἀνθρώπου ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ζῇ ; 


Ἢ γὰρ ὕπανδρος γυνὴ τῷ ζῶντι ἀνδρὶ 
δέδεται νόμῳ ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ 
 κατήργηται ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τοῦ ἀνδρός. 


"Apa οὖν ζῶντος τοῦ ἀνδρὸς μοιχαλὶς 
χρηματίσει, ἐὰν γένηται ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ " 
ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ 6 ἀνὴρ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν 
ὰ ἀποθάνῃ VIP, épa ἐστὶ 
ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου, TOU μὴ εἶναι αὐτὴν μοι- 

ie / 9 \ e / 
χαλίδα, γενομένην ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ. 


Ὥστε, ἀδελφοί μου, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐθανα- 
τώθητε τῷ νόμῳ διὰ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ 
Χριστοῦ εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, τῷ 
ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγερθέντι, va καρποφορήσωμεν 
τῷ Θεῷ. 


Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak 
to them that know the law,) how that 
the law hath dominion over a man as 
long as he liveth ? 

For a woman which hath an husband 
is bound by the law to her husband so 
long as he liveth; but if the husband 
be dead, she is loosed from the law of 
her husband. 

So then if, while Aer husband liveth, 
she be married to another man, she 
shall be called an adulteress: but if 
her husband be dead, she is free from 
that law; so that she is no adulteress, 
though she be married to another man. 

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are 
become dead to the law by the body of 
Christ ; that ye should be married to 
another, even to him who is raised 
from the dead, that we should bring 
forth fruit unto God. 


This passage has been much insisted on as a proof of the 
indissolubility of marriage, but apparently without sufficient 
grounds. The writer is arguing against the continued sub- 
jection of the Christian people to the law, 1.6. the Jewish law. 
That law is dead, and Christians are therefore free to contract 
a new alliance, just as a woman is free to marry again when 
her husband is dead. Now it is not entirely clear under what 
law we are to understand that the woman is only free to marry 
again when her husband is dead. Under the Jewish law 
divorce was permitted, and it appears in practice to have 
carried with it the permission for even the woman to marry 


again. Under the Roman law marriage was simply a contract, 


176 HOLY MATRIMONY 
and liable to dissolution by the parties at any time without 
cause assigned. By the Christian rule, as we hope to shew, no 
cause short of death admitted the dissolution of a marriage. 
‘But when this epistle was written it was hardly possible that 
reference could yet be made to the Christian rule by way of 
illustration of the binding character of law. Apparently, 
therefore, we must understand the reference to be to the 
ordinary course of marriage, under either the Jewish or the 
toman law. A man and his wife were married “ till death” 
them did “part,” unless they were divorced, an occasional 
occurrence with which the argument is not concerned. 

If this be the right interpretation of the passage, it is 
without significance for the present enquiry. 

(vi) LeCor, wu  τὐ σὰς 


Tots δὲ γεγαμηκόσι παραγγέλλω, οὐκ And unto the married I command, 


ἐγὼ, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ Κύριος, γυναῖκα ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς 
μὴ χωρισθῆναι. 
᾿Ἐὰν δὲ καὶ χωρισθῇ, μενέτω ἄγαμος, 


yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the 
wife depart from her husband. 
But and if she depart, let her 


remain unmarried, or be reconciled to 
her husband: and let not the husband 
put away his wife. 


ἢ τῷ νδρὶ καταλλαγήτω" Kae ἂνδρα 


γυναῖκα μὴ ἀφιέναι, 


These commands are addressed to the Corinthian Christians, 
who would ordinarily be under the Roman law in the matter of 
marriage. The word χωρισθῆναι must probably be understood 
to refer to a definite divorce, which, as will be seen, was under 
the Roman law readily attainable without criminal cause 
assigned. The first and obvious direction, which S. Paul, 
speaking in the name of the Lord, has to give, is that the wife 
be not separated from her husband. If she be so separated 
(and it will be seen that the practice of the early Church 
permitted, though it did not require, the woman to put away 
her husband for adultery), she is still to remain unmarried. 

(Vii) PLA Cor evil 8.0. 


Turn δέδεται [νόμῳ] ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον 


ζῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς" ἐὰν δὲ κοιμηθῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ 


αὐτῆς, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι, 
μόνον ἐν Ἰζυρίῳ. 


The wife is bound [by the law] as 
long as her husband liveth; but if 
her husband be dead, she is at liberty 
to be married to whom she will. 


The word νόμῳ, by law, is not found in the best manuscripts, 
and should be rejected. The Corinthian Christians, at least so 
many of them as were Gentiles, were not bound by the Jewish 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE LY 


law; while, as has already been remarked, the Roman law, 
under which they lived, regarded marriage as a contract 
terminable at any time by the will of the parties. It might 
therefore be concluded that here, as probably in Romans 
vu. 1-4, the writer is concerned only with the ordinary course 
of marriage. But there is an important difference between the 
two statements. In the Epistle to the Romans the reader is 
referred by way of illustration to the known conditions of the 
Jewish or of the Roman law. In the chapter now under 
review 8. Paul is giving definite commandments to the 
Christian people, which are in part certainly consciously and 
avowedly new. Such are the instructions about the divorce 
and remarriage of converts. On the whole it seems most 
probable that this verse is to be understood as not merely 
indicating the ordinary rule, but as laying down a prohibition 
to the wife to proceed to remarriage during the lifetime of her 
husband. It will thus repeat in another form what has already 
been laid down in verses 10, 11. 

The evidence of Holy Scripture on the question of the Summary 
dissolubility of Christian marriage is now before us. The ae of 
putting away of a wife for πορνεία is held blameless by theN-T. 
S. Matthew xix. 9 and 8. Matthew v. 32, as it has always been 
held by the Christian Church. There is no passage which 
certainly sanctions remarriage after divorce. The text of 
S. Matthew xix. 9, as it is found in some MSS., appears to do 
so, at least if the words are held to have reference to the 
Christian community, and if πορνεία be taken to include 
adultery. But there are extraordinary variations in the 
readings of this text; the original reading may well have 
contained no reference to remarriage at all; and in any case 
the uncertainty of the reading makes it very undesirable to 
base any argument upon it. Putting this passage aside, the 
adultery of those who marry again is clearly stated in 
S. Matthew v. 32 (the woman and her partner), in 8. Mark 
x. 11, 12 (the man and the woman), in S. Luke xvi. 18 (the 
man and the woman’s partner). The four first verses of the 
Epistle to the Romans speak of death as that which alone 
severs the bond which binds a woman to her husband, but the 

N 


178 HOLY MATRIMONY 


passage may have no exclusive reference to Christian usage, 
and if it refer to either Jewish or Roman law, it is only 
applicable under ordinary circumstances, and therefore of no 
significance for the present enquiry. In the seventh chapter 
of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, 8. Paul bids the wife 
not to be separated from her husband; or if she have been 
separated to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her 
husband; adding later on in the same chapter a statement that 
the wife is bound as long as her husband liveth, the obligation 
apparently arising from the Christian rule. 

These passages may be said to exhaust the direct witness of 
the New Testament on the subject of the indissolubility of 
Christian marriage. 


II. THe CHurcH IN HISTORY. 
A. To the Conversion of Constantine (314 A.D.). 


AUTHORITIES. 
HERMAS., 
Pastor, Mandatum iv. 
ΔΕ » as K , Ἰὰς / 3 / > nA / 
eyo αὐτῷ ύριε, ἐπίτρεψόν μοι ὀλίγα ἐπερωτῆσαι oe. Λέγε, 
Vs / 5 “Ὁ 
φησίν. Κύριε, φημί, εἰ γυναῖκα ἔχῃ τις πιστὴν ἐν κυρίῳ καὶ ταύτην 
a 3 ᾿ς δ ον ec / « 5 \ nN 5) > ζω ΕΣ 
εὕρη ἐν μοιχείᾳ τινί, ἄρα ἁμαρτάνει ὃ ἀνὴρ συνζῶν μετ᾽ αὐτῆς; ᾿Αχρι 
lal > / / » 4 / ὼ JK \ Pe ¢ S'S eX \ « lA 
τῆς ἀγνοίας, φησίν, οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει" ἐὰν δὲ γνῷ O ἀνὴρ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν 
» δ \ \ ε A “A 
αὐτῆς καὶ μὴ μετανοήσῃ ἢ γυνή, GAN ἐπιμένῃ TH πορνείᾳ αὐτῆς Kat 
ἈΠ e \ cy γι ” A aA 
συνῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ pet αὐτῆς, ἔνοχος γίνεται τῆς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῆς καὶ 
\ Ἂν ΄, 53. ὍΝ -΄ ὅδ , , , Cae Ss eae ΣΧ 
κοινωνὸς τῆς μοιχείας αὐτῆς. Tt οὖν, φημί, κύριε, ποιήσῃ ὃ ἀνήρ, ἐὰν 
> , σε (0 ’ Ε fd ὁ 3 / ᾿» > 3 Δ; «ε 
ἐπιμείνῃ τῷ πάθει τούτῳ ἡ γυνή; ᾿Απολυσάτω, φησίν, αὑτὴν καὶ ὃ 
b τ ἐν > tes > he 5 +N Ἂ 5 7 Ἂν la cas 7 
ἀνὴρ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ μενέτω ἐὰν δὲ ἀπολύσας τὴν γυναῖκα ἑτέραν γαμήσῃ, 
Ν Seen las Ka sy / / Ν Ν 5 lal XN 
καὶ αὐτὸς μοιχᾶται. av οὖν, φημί, κύριε, μετὰ τὸ ἀπολυθῆναι τὴν 
‘Ka εταὰ on) «ε Ἂ " \ 0 An SEN x 5 αν 5 ὃ 5 
γυναῖκα μετανοήσῃ ἣ γυνὴ καὶ θελήσῃ ἐπὶ τὸν ἐαυτῆς ἄνδρα ὑπο- 
΄ > Sew Oy, sak: Toa / ΣΝ ᾿ δ 
στρέψαι, οὐ παραδεχθήσεται ; at μήν, φησίν, ἐὰν μὴ παραδέξηται 
3’ Ἢ Ce): 7 ε fe N ΄ € / « Ce 5 “A 3 Ἂ 
αὐτὴν ὁ ἀνήρ, ἁμαρτάνει καὶ μεγάλην ἁμαρτίαν ἑαυτῷ ἐπισπᾶται, ἀλλὰ 
Ν lal 
δεῖ παραδεχθῆναι τὸν ἡμαρτηκότα Kal μετανοοῦντα" μὴ ἐπὶ πολὺ δέ" 
lal \ 7 Lal A“ / (apes es \ > / sy 
τοῖς yap δούλοις τοῦ θεοῦ μετάνοιά ἐστιν μίας Διὰ τὴν μετάνοιαν οὖν 
> / A «ε ¢ las - 
οὐκ ὀφείλει γαμεῖν ὁ ἀνήρ. Αὕτη ἡ πρᾶξις ἐπὶ γυναικὶ καὶ ἀνδρὲ 


A (OF: ΄ / ΄ὔ 5 , 27 \ , 5 a 
κειται. υ μονον, φησίν, μοιχεία COTLV, EAV τις ΤῊΡ σαρκα αὐυτου 


1 Funk, Patres Apostolici, 1887, p. 392. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 179 


7 5 Ἂς \ ὰ ” Ν ε vA ~ aA ” ἴω 
μιάνῃ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὃς ἂν τὰ ὁμοιώματα ποιῇ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, μοιχᾶται. 
Ἵ Ὁ » a 
“Ὥστε καὶ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἔργοις ἐὰν ἐμμένῃ Tis Kal μὴ pETavon, 
ΕἼΣ τ x4 SOR NEN aA x04 % Or \ ὙΤ ΝΑ ΄ pA 
ἀπέχου aT αὐτοῦ καὶ μὴ συνζῆθι αὐτῷ εἰ δὲ μὴ, Kal σὺ μέτοχος εἶ τῆς 
e ἐφ Ψ lal \ La) , Ε lal RT ib 5 ἴω £ ” 
ἁμαρτίας αὐτοῦ, Διὰ τοῦτο προσετάγη ὑμῖν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῖς μένειν, εἴτε 
ἀνὴρ εἴτε γυνή" δύναται γὰρ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις μετάνοια εἶναι. “Kyo 
> , 3 ΄ 2 , o “ e an 7 na 
οὖν, φησίν, οὐ δίδωμι ἀφορμήν, ἵνα αὕτη ἡ πρᾶξις οὕτως συντελῆται, 
Ρ] ‘ > \ » ¢€ 4 \ i ͵ \ \ lal ΄ 
ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ μηκέτι ἁμαρτάνειν τὸν ἡμαρτηκότα. Llepi δὲ τῆς προτέρας 
ἁμαρτίας αὐτοῦ ἔστιν ὁ δυνάμενος ἴασιν δοῦναι" αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἔχων 
πάντων τὴν ἐξουσίαν. 

S. Justin Martyr. 
Apologia Prima pro Christianis, ὃ8 14, 15.1 

“Iva δὲ μὴ σοφίξσθαι ὑμᾶς δόξωμεν, ὀλίγων τινῶν τῶν Tap’ αὐτοῦ 

ἴων “ / ΕῚ lal na ” Ν lal > f 
τοῦ Χριστοῦ διδαγμάτων ἐπιμνησθῆναι καλῶς ἔχειν πρὸ τῆς ἀποδείξεως 
¢€ , \ id 7 y+ id “ I πὸ / > 
ἡγησάμεθα, Kal ὑμέτερον ἔστω, ὡς δυνατῶν βασιλέων, ἐξετάσαι εἰ 
ἀληθῶς ταῦτα δεδιδάγμεθα καὶ διδάσκομεν. Βραχεῖς δὲ καὶ σύντομοι 

> > an Ζ 7 5 Ἂν = «ες ἴω » Ἂν Pa 
παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ λόγοι γεγόνασιν. Ov yap σοφιστὴς ὑπῆρχεν, ἀλλὰ δύναμις 
Θεοῦ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ ἦν. Ἱ]ερὶ μὲν οὖν σωφροσύνης τοσοῦτον εἶπεν" 
La} a” 5 7 ν᾿ Ἂ Ν > an Les. 4 > / a 
Os av ἐμβλέψῃ γυναικὶ πρὸς TO ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτῆς, ἤδη ἐμοίχευσε TH 
καρδίᾳ παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ. Καί: Hi ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ὁ δεξιὸς σκανδαλίζει 
σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτόν" συμφέρει γάρ σοι μονόφθαλμον εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν 
βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἢ μετὰ τῶν δύο πεμφθῆναι εἰς τὸ αἰώνιον πῦρ. 
Καί: Ὃς γαμεῖ ἀπολελυμένην ad’ ἐτέρου ἀνδρὸς, μοιχᾶται. Καί: Εἰσί 

a 5 7 id Ἂς “ “} Fd 3 Ν \ CQ => , 
τινες οἵτινες εὐνουχίσθησαν ὑπὸ TOV ἀνθρώπων εἰσὶ δὲ οὗ ἐγεννήθησαν 
5 mn D Xx OX a 5 7 ε \ ales \ / nA 
εὐνοῦχοι: εἰσὶ δὲ of εὐνούχισαν ἑαυτοὺς διὰ τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν 
οὐρανῶν: πλὴν οὐ πάντες τοῦτο χωροῦσιν. Ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ νόμῳ 
> ΄ ΄, ΄ ε \ \ 7 e ΄ , 
ἀνθρωπίνῳ διγαμίας ποιούμενοι, ἁμαρτωλοὶ παρὰ τῷ ἡμετέρῳ Διδασκάλῳ 


ἰσὶ t ol λέ κὶ πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτῆ 
εἰσὶ, καὶ οἱ προςἨβλέποντες γυναι pos τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσ ς. 


Apologia Secunda, cap. 3.3 
Γυνή τις συνεβίου ἀνδρὶ ἀκολασταίνοντι, ἀκολασταίνουσα καὶ αὐτὴ 
πρότερον. "Hei δὲ τὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ διδάγματα ἔγνω αὕτη, ἐσωφρονίσθη, 
\ \ ” ε ΄, A (θ > A 8 Ὦ ΄ > 
καὶ τὸν ἄνδρα ὁμοίως σωφρονεῖν πείθειν ἐπειρᾶτο, διδάγματα ἀνα- 
/ / / A > / \ \ ζ΄ 5 ἴω. 
φέρουσα, τήν τε μέλλουσαν τοῖς οὐ σωφρόνως καὶ μετὰ λόγου ὀρθοῦ 
βιοῦσιν ἔσεσθαι ἐν αἰωνίῳ πυρὶ κόλασιν ἀπαγγέλλουσα. “O δὲ ταῖς 
> A > / > ΄ 5 ὦ XN a ΄ > a Ἂς 
αὐταῖς ἀσελγείαις ἐπιμένων, ἀλλοτρίαν διὰ τῶν πράξεων ἐποιεῖτο τὴν 
, ) \ \ ε ΄ \ Xr \ c \ We θ 
γαμετήν. ᾿Ασεβὲς γὰρ ἡγουμένη τὸ λοιπὸν ἡ γυνὴ συγκατακλίνεσθαι 
3 x \ Ν la) 7 / \ Ν \ / , ς la > 
ἀνδρὶ παρὰ Tov τῆς φύσεως νόμον Kal παρὰ TO δίκαιον πόρους ἡδονῆς ἐκ 


al “ a If 9 Ἂν 
παντὺς πειρωμένῳ ποιεῖσθαι, τῆς συζυγίας χωρισθῆναι ἐβουλήθη. Kat 





1 Migne’s Ed. pp. 348, 849. 2 Tbhid. p. 444. 
N 2 


180 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ἐπεὶ ἐξεδυσωπεῖτο ὑπὸ τῶν αὐτῆς, ἔτι προσμένειν συμβουλευόντων, ὡς 
εἰς ἐλπίδας μεταβολῆς ἥξοντός ποτε τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, βιαζομένη ἑαυτὴν 
ἐπέμενεν. Heidi) δὲ ὁ ταύτης ἀνὴρ, εἰς τὴν ᾿Αλεξανδρείαν πορευθεὶς, 
χαλεπώτερα πράττειν ἀπηγγέλθη, ὅπως μὴ κοινωνὸς τῶν αδικημάτων 
καὶ ἀσεβημάτων γένηται, μένουσα ἐν τῇ συζυγίᾳ, καὶ ὁμοδίαιτος καὶ 


Cree ΄, \ ΄ Se ΣΌΝ ΄ a > ΄ θ 
O/LOKOLTOS γινομενή)» TO λεγόμενον TAP υμιν ρεπούδιον δοῦσα εχωρισ 1). 


ATHENAGORAS. 
Legatio pro Christianis, § 33.1 

Οὐ γὰρ μελέτῃ λόγων, GAN ἐπιδείξει καὶ διδασκαλίᾳ ἔργων τὰ 
12 7 ς A el + es θ ΄ ᾽ Ἃ > Le V3 / 16) ὰ δεύτε 0 
ἡμέτερα" ἢ οἷός τις ἐτέχθη, μένειν, ἢ ἐφ᾽ ἑνὲ γάμῳ. γὰρ ρος 
εὐπρεπής ἐστι μοιχεία, Ὃς γὰρ ἂν ἀπολύσῃ, φησὶ, τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, 
καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται" οὔτε ἀπολύειν ἐπιτρέπων ἧς ἔπαυσέ τις 
τὴν παρθενίαν, οὔτε ἐπιγαμεῖν. “O γὰρ ἀποστερῶν ἑαυτὸν τῆς προτέρας 
γυναικὸς, καὶ εἰ τέθνηκε, μοιχός ἐστι παρακεκαλυμμένος, παραβαίνων 
‘ Ἁ A Lal [2 {2 > > et BA x a 5 ” Ἂς he 
μὲν τὴν χεῖρα τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὅτι ἐν ἀρχῃ ὁ Θεὸς ἕνα ἄνδρα ἔπλασε καὶ μίαν 
γυναῖκα" λύων δὲ τὴν σάρκα πρὸς σάρκα κατὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν πρὸς μίξιν 
εἰς τοῦ γένους κοινωνίαν. 

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. 
Ad Autolycum, lib. ili. ὁ. 13.? 
Ἢ δὲ EvayyéAvas φωνὴ ἐπιτατικώτερον διδάσκει περὶ ἁγνείας λέ- 
ὃ On ε JAN A Ψ fd \ X 5 lal 5 Ἂς δὴ 

γουσα" Τ]ᾶς ὁ ἰδὼν γυναῖκα ἀλλοτρίαν πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν ἤδη 
ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὑτοῦ" καὶ ὁ γαμῶν, φησὶν, ἀπολελυ- 
μένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρος μοιχεύει" καὶ ὃς ἀπολύει γυναῖκα παρεκτὸς λόγου 


πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 


5. CLEMENT oF ALEXANDRIA. 
Stromata, lib. 11. cap. 23.8 

“ A > ΄ A 

Oru δὲ γαμεῖν ἡ Τραφὴ συμβουλεύει οὖδε ἀφίστασθαί ποτε τῆς 
συζυγίας ἐπιτρέπει, ἄντικρυς νομοθετεῖ" Οὐκ ἀπολύσεις γυναῖκα, πλὴν 

Ν ΩΝ “ la) 

εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ λόγῳ πορνείας" μοιχείαν δὲ ἡγεῖται τὸ ἐπιγῆμαι ζῶντος 
θατέρου τῶν SEO OTA ᾿Ανύποπτον δὲ εἰς OREO δείκνυσι 
γυναῖκα τὸ μὴ pe No ieee i μὴν ἼΤΩ ΚΡ ΑΙ eae TOU πρέπ- 
cates εὐχαῖς καὶ aoe προσανέχουσαν ἐκτενῶς TAS pea? SSS THs 
οἰκίας φυλαττομένην τὰς πολλὰς, ἀποκλείουσαν δ᾽ ὡς οἷόν θ᾽ ἑαυτὴν 
τῆς πρὸς τοὺς οὐ προσήκοντας προσόψεως, προὐργιαίτερον τιθεμένην τῆς 
ἀκαίρου φλυαρίας τὴν οἰκουρίαν. 


1 Migne’s Ed. pp. 365, 368. 2 Ibid. Pat. Grae. tom. vi. c. 18. 
3 Ibid. pp. 1096, 1097. + 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 181 


Γ 


N la 
O δὲ ἀπολελυμένην λαμβάνων γυναῖκα μοιχᾶται, φησίν" ἐὰν yap 
τις ἀπολύσῃ γυναῖκα, μοιχᾶται αὐτὴν, τουτέστιν, ἀναγκάζει μοιχευ- 
θῆναι. Οὐ μόνον δὲ ὁ ἀπολύσας αἴτιος γίνεται τούτου, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ 
παραδεξάμενος αὐτὴν, ἀφορμὴν παρέχων τοῦ ἁμαρτῆσαι τῇ γυναικί" εἰ 
μὴ NY , 5 re x Ἂς ” ‘f > ε / Ξ 16 X\ 
yap μὴ δέχοιτο, ἀνακάμψει πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα. Τί οὖν ὁ νόμος ; pos 
ἀναστολὴν τῆς εὐεπιφορίας τῶν παθῶν ἀναιρεῖσθαι προστάττει τὴν 
A ἘΝ ¢ 5 A aN Ἄς ἐν 4 Ν 
μοιχευθεῖσαν, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἐλεγχθεῖσαν" ἐὰν δὲ ἱέρεια ἢ, πυρὶ παρα- 
δίδοσθαι προστάττει. 
A a XN 
Λιθοβολεῖται δὲ καὶ 6 μοιχός" GAN οὐκ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τόπῳ, ἵνα μηδὲ 
ε 4 » A / 5. » 7] / “x > / ce / ᾿ 
ὁ θάνατος αὐτοῖς κοινόν 7. Ov δή μάχεται τῷ Εὐαγγελίῳ ὁ νόμος 
συνάδει δὲ αὐτῷ, Πῶς γὰρ οὐχὲὴ, ἑνὸς ὄντος ἀμφοῖν χορηγοῦ τοῦ 
Αἱ του τὸς γὰρ οὐχο EVOS™ OVTOS) "ἀμ OUD 
Κυρίου; Ἢ γάρ τοι πορνεύσασα (ἢ μὲν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ἀπέθανε δὲ ταῖς 
ἐντολαῖς, ἡ δὲ μετανοήσασα, οἷον ἀναγεννηθεῖσα κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστροφὴν 
τοῦ βιοῦ, παλιγγενεσίαν ἔχει ζωῆς" τεθνηκυίας μὲν τῆς πόρνης τῆς 
παλαιᾶς, εἰς βίον δὲ παρελθού ὖθις τῆ ὰ τὴ νοι εννη- 
5 ets ν δὲ παρελθούσης αὖθις τῆς κατὰ τὴν μετάνοιαν yevvy 
θείσης. Μαρτυρεῖ τοῖς εἰρημένοις διὰ ᾿ΙΪεζεκιὴλ τὸ Πνεῦμα, λέγον: Οὐ 
4 \ / “ ε “A ε \ 5 7 5» Υ͂ 
βούλομαι τὸν θάνατον τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ, ὡς τὸ ἐπιστρέψαι. Αὐτίκα 
λιθόλευστοι γίνονται ὡς ἂν διὰ σκληροκαρδίαν ἀποθανόντες τῷ νόμῳ, 
ᾧ μὴ ἐπείσθησαν" τῇ Se ἱερείᾳ ἐπιτείνεται τὰ τῆς κολάσεως, ὅτι ᾧ 


πλεῖον ἐδόθη, οὗτος καὶ πλεῖον ἀπαιτηθήσεται. 


Stromata, lib. ii. cap. 6.1 
/ ¢ > A 
Τί δὲ ἐστιν ὅπερ ὁ Κύριος εἶπε πρὸς τοὺς περὶ τοῦ ἀποστασίου πυν- 
6 be > 4” > an A he a bat , 
avopevous, Ki ἔζεστιν ἀπολῦσαι γυναῖκα, Μωύσέως eritpeavtos. 
ἮΝ Ἂς na oe nN lal » 
pos τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν, φησὶν, ὁ Mwvons ταῦτα ἔγραφεν" ὑμεῖς 
δὲ » > Vs “ “a 7ὔ «ε ἣν “5, a " «ε a > 
€ οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε, OTL TH πρωτοπλάστῳ ὁ Θεὸς εἶπεν" ᾿ἔσεσθε οἱ δύο εἰς 
/ te e (3 > 7 Ν lal SA / / 
σάρκα μίαν; “Ὥστε ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα χωρὶς λόγου πορνείας 
ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 
Stromata, lib. ui. cap. 0.5 
To δὲ, Ov πάντες χωροῦσι τὸν λόγον τοῦτον᾽ εἰσὶ γὰρ εὐνοῦχοι, 
οἵτινες ἐγεννήθησαν οὕτως" καὶ εἰσιν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνουχίσθησαν 
ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ εἰσιν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνούχισαν ἑαυτοὺς διὰ 
οὗ td “ ε la) « / lal 7 5 ” 
τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν otpavav. “O δυνάμενος χωρεῖν xwpeitw* οὐκ ἴσασιν, 
ὅτι μετὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀποστασίου ῥῆσιν, πυθομένων τινῶν ὅτι, ἐὰν οὕτως ἢ) 
« Ψ / ΨΆ \ 2 7 ἊΣ 9 tA lal t « ha 
ἡ αἰτία τῆς γυναικὸς, οὐ συμφέρει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ γαμῆσαι" τότε ὁ Κύριος 
ἔφη" Οὐ πάντες χωροῦσι τὸν λόγον τοῦτον, GAN οἷς δέδοται. Τοῦτο 
γὰρ οἱ πυνθανόμενοι μαθεῖν ἐβουλήθησαν, εἰ συγχωρεῖ, καταγνωσθείσης 
3 ἣς / \ Ἂ 9 Α͂ «ε / a“ 
ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ γυναικὸς καὶ ἐκβληθείσης, ἑτέραν γῆμαι. 


1 Migne’s Ed, pp. 1149, 1150. 2 Ibid, p. 1153. 


182 HOLY MATRIMONY 


TERTULLIAN. 
De Monogamia, § 9. 


Sed hae argumentationes potius existimentur de conjecturis coactae, 
si non et sententiae adstiterint, quas Dominus emisit in repudil 
retractatu, quod permissum aliquando jam prohibet; in primis, quia 
ab initio non fuit sic, sicut matrimonil numerus; tum quia quos Deos 
conjunxtt, homo non separabit ;, scilicet ne contra Dominum faciat. 
Solus enim ille separabit, qui et conjunxit; separabit autem, non per 
duritiam repudii, quam exprobrat et compescit, sed per debitum 
mortis. Siquidem wnus ex passeribus duobus non cadit in terram sine 
patris voluntate. Igitur, si quos Deus conjunait, homo non separabit 
repudio; aeque consentaneum est, ut quos Deus separavit morte, 
homo non conjungat matrimonio; proinde contra Dei voluntatem 
juncturus separationem, atque si separasset conjunctionem. Hoe 
quantum ad Dei voluntatem non destruendam, et 1101] formam 
restruendam, Caeterum, et alia ratio conspirat; imo non alia, sed 
quae initii formam imposuit, et voluntatem Dei movit δα pro- 
hibitionem repudii: Quoniam qui dimiserit uxorem suam, praeter- 
quam ex causa adulterti, facit eam adulterari,; et qui dimissam a 
viro duxerit, adulterat utique. Nam et nubere legitime non potest 
repudiata; et si quid tale commiserit sine matrimonii nomine, non 
capit elogium adulterii, qua adulterilum in matrimonio crimen est? 
Deus aliter censuit, citra quam homines, ut in totum, sive per 
nuptias, sive vulgo, alterius viri admissio adulterium pronuntietur a 
Deo. Videamus enim quid sit matrimonium apud Deum, et ita 
cognoscemus quid sit aeque adulterium. Matrimonium est, cum 
Deus jungit duos in unam carnem, aut junctos deprehendens in 
eadem carne, conjunctionem signavit. Adulterium est, cum, quoquo 
modo disjunctis duobus, alia caro, imo aliena miscetur, de qua dici 
non possit: Haec est caro ex carne mea, et hoc os ex ossibus meis. 
Semel enim hoc et factum, et pronuntiatum, sicut ab initio, ita et 
nune in aliam carnem non potest convenire. . . 

Ideoque abstulit repudium, quod ab initio non fuit; ut, quod ab 
initio fuit, muniat duorum in unam carnem perseverantiam, ne 
necessitas vel occasio tertiae concarnationis irumpat, soli caussae 
permittens repudium, si forte praevenerit, cul praecavetur. Adeo 
autem repudium a primordio non fuit, ut apud Romanos post annum 
sexcentesimum urbis conditae id genus duritiae commissum denotetur. 
Sed illi etiam non repudiantes adulteria commiscent; nobis, etsi 
repudiemus, ne nubere quidem licebit. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. pp. 940-942. 


aa 


ee 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 183 


De Monogamia, § 10. 


Video jam hine ad Apostolum nos provocari. Ad cujus sensum 
facilius perspiciendum, tanto instantius praeculeandum est mulierem 
magis defuncto marito teneri, quominus alium virum admittat. Re- 
cogitemus enim repudium, aut discordia fieri, aut discordiam facere ; 
mortem vero ex lege Dei, non ex hominis offensa evenire. Idque 
omnium esse debitum, etiam non maritorum. Igitur si repudiata 
quae per discordiam, et iram, et odium, et caussas eorum, Injuriam 
vel contumeliam, vel quamlibet querelam, et anima et corpore 
separata est, tenetur inimico, ne dicam marito; quanto magis, ila, 
quae neque suo, neque mariti vitio, sed dominicae legis eventu, a 
matrimonio non separata, sed relicta, ejus erit etiam defuncti, cui 
etiam defuncto concordiam debet! A quo repudium non audiit, non 
divertit ; cui repudium non scripsit, cum ipso est; quem amisisse 
noluit, retinet. Habet secum animi licentiam, qui omnia homini 
quae non habet, imaginario fructu repraesentat. Ipsam denique 
interrogo foeminam: Dic mihi, soror, in pace praemisisti virum 
tuum? Quid respondebit! An in discordia? Ergo hoc magis ei 
vincta est, cum quo habet apud Deum caussam. Non discessit, quae 
tenetur. Sed in pace. Ergo perseveret in ea cum illo necesse est, 
quem jam repudiare non poterit, ne sic quidem nuptura si repudiare 
potuisset. 

Adversus Marcionem, lib. iv. cap. 34.1 

Sed Christus divortium prohibet, dicens: Qué dimisertt uxorem 
suam, et aliam duxerit, adulterium committit: qui dimissam a viro 
duxerit, aeque adulter est. Ut sic quoque prohibeat divortium, 
illicitum facit repudiatae matrimonium. Moyses vero permittit 
repudium in Deuteronomio: Si swmpserit quis uaorem, et habitaverct 
cum ea, et evenerit non invenire eam apud eum gratium, eo quod 
inventum sit in illa impudicum negotium, scribet libellum repudie, et 
dabit in manu ejus, et dimittet illam de domo sua. Vides diversi- 
tatem Legis et Evangelii, Moysi et Christi? Plane. Non enim 
recepisti illud quoque Evangelium (Matt. xix. 8) ejusdem veritatis, 
et ejusdem Christi, in quo prohibens divortium, propriam quaestionem 
ejus absolvit: Moyses propter duritiam cordis vestri praeceput libellum 
repudti dare ; a primordio autem non fuit sic, quia scilicet qur marem 
et foeminam fecerat, Erunt duo, dixerat, in carne una; quod Deus 
itaque junait, homo disjunxerit? Hoe enim responso, et Moysi 
constitutionem protexit, ut sui; et Creatoris institutionem direxit 
ut Christus ipsius. Sed quatenus ex his revincendus es, quae re- 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. 11. pp. 441-3. 


184 HOLY MATRIMONY 


cepisti, sic tibi occurram ac si meus Christus. Nonne et ipse 
prohibens divortium, et patrem tamen gestans eum qui marem et 
foeminam junxit, excusaverit potius quam destruxerit Moysi con- 
stitutionem? Sed ecce sic tuus sit iste Christus contrarium docens 
Moysi et Creatori, ut si non contrarium ostendero, meus sit. Dico 
enim illum conditionaliter nune fecisse divortii prohibitionem, si ideo 
quis dimittat uxorem, ut aliam ducat: Qui dimiserit, inquit, wxorem, 
et aliam duxerit, adulterium commisit, et qui a marito dimissam 
duwxerit, aeque adulter est; ex eadem utique caussa, qua non licet 
dimitti, ut alia ducatur: illicite enim dimissam pro indimissa ducens, 
adulter est. Manet enim matrimonium quod non rite diremptum 
est. Manente matrimonio nubere, adulterium est. Ita si con- 
ditionaliter prohibuit dimittere uxorem non in totum prohibuit; et 
quod non prohibuit in totum permisit alias, ubi caussa cessat ob 
quam prohibuit. Etiam non contrarium Moysi docet, cujus prae- 
ceptum alicubi conservat, nondum dico, confirmat. Aut si omnino 
negas permitti divortium a Christo, quomodo tu nuptias dirimis, nec 
conjungens marem et foeminam, nec alibi conjunctos ad sacramentum 
baptismatis et Eucharistiae admittens, nisi inter se conjuraverint 
adversus fructum nuptiarum, ut adversus ipsum Creatorem. Certe 
quid facit apud te maritus, si uxor ejus commiserit adulterium % 
habebitne illam? Sed nee tuum apostolum sinere scis conjungi 
prostitutae membra Christi. Habet itaque et Christum assertorem 
justitia divortii. Jam hine confirmatur ab illo Moyses, ex eodem 
titulo prohibens repudium, quo et Christus, si inventum fuerit in 
muliere negotium impudicum. Nam et in Evangelio Matthaei: Qui 
dimiserit, inquit, wxorem suam praeter causam adulterii, facit eam 
adulterari , atque ita adulter censetur et lle, qui dimissam a viro 
duxerit, Caeterum praeter ex causa adulterii, nec Creator disjungit, 
quod ipse scilicet conjunxit, eodem alibi Moyse constituente eum qui 
ex compressione matrimonium fecerat, non posse dimittere uxorem in 
omne tempus. Quod si ex violentia coactum matrimonium stabit, 
quanto magis ex convenientia voluntarium? sicut et prophetiae auc- 
toritate, Uxorem juventutis tuae non dimitte. Uabes itaque Christum 
ultro vestigia ubique Creatoris ineuntem, tam in permittendo repudio, 
quam in prohibendo. Habes etiam nuptiarum quoquo velis pro- 
spectorem, quas nec separari vult, prohibendo repudium, nec cum 
macula haberi, tunc permittendo divortium. Erubesce non con- 
jungens quos tuus quoque Christus conjunxit. Erubesce etiam 
disjungens sine eo merito, quo disjungi voluit et tuus Christus. 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 185 


Adversus Marcionem, lib. v. cap. 7.1 


Plane Christus vetat divortium, Moyses vero permittit. Marcio 
totum concubitum auferens fidelibus (viderint enim catechumeni 
ejus) repudium ante nuptae jubens, cujus sententiam sequitur, 
Moysi an Christi? Atquin et Christus,? cum praecipit mulierem a 
viro non discedere, aut si discesserit, manere innuptam, aut reconciliart 
viro, et repudium permisit quod non in totum prohibuit, et matri- 
monium confirmavit, quod primo vetuit disjungi, et si forte disjunctum 
voluit reformari. 


Ad. Usorem, lib, ii; cap. 11: 


Nune ad secunda consilia convertamur, respectu. humanae in- 
firmitatis, quarumdam exemplis admoventibus, quae divortio vel 
mariti excessu, oblata continentiae occasione, non modo abjecerunt 
opportunitatem tanti boni, sed ne in nubendo quidem rursum dis- 
ciplinae meminisse voluerunt, ut in Domino potissimum nuberent. 


ΤΙ 07 2." 


Respondebo: Si spiritus dederit, ante omnia allegans Dominum 
magis ratum habere matrimonium non contrahi, quam omnino dis- 
jungi: denique divortium prohibet, nisi stupri caussa, continentiam 
vero commendat. 


De Patientia, §12.° 


Non let nobis una die sine patientia manere. Atenim cum 
omnem speciem salutaris disciplinae gubernet, quid mirum quod 
etiam poenitentiae ministrat, solitae lapsis subvenire, cum, disjuncto 
matrimonio, ex ea tamen causa, qua licet seu viro, seu foeminae ad 
viduitatis perseverantiam sustineri, haec exspectat, haec exoptat, 
haec exorat poenitentiam quandoque inituris salutem. (uantum 
boni utrique confert! alterum non adulterum facit, alterum emendat. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom, ii. Ὁ. 486. 

2 Μὲ Christus. Pamelius and Rigaltius here read “Christi Apostolus,” 
Ochler defends the text as the genuine phrase of Tertullian, suggested (as Fr. 
Junius says) by the preceding words “ Moses or Christ.” To which we may 
add that in this particular place 8. Paul mentions his injunction as Christ’s 
especially: οὐκ ἐγὼ, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ Κύριος (1 Cor. vii. 10).—Dr. Holmes’s Note. 

3 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1289, 4 Ibid. tom. i. p. 1292. 

> Ibid. tom. i. p. 1268. 


186 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ORIGEN. 
Commentary on S. Matthew, ch, xix.* 
Ν Cast Ν \ la) / > ΄ δό Ἢ ε Ἂ 
Πλὴν ὁ Σωτὴρ καὶ τοῖς πειράζουσιν ἀποκρίνεται δόγματα" οἱ μεν 
x eX ᾿ “He ” 3 θ / 3 Av Ἂν ae ε “A Ν 
γὰρ ἔλεγον ἰ ἔξεστιν ἀνθρώπῳ ἀπολῦσαι τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ κατὰ 
a“ 5 / « \ 9 x Loe > > 72 2 ic ve 
πᾶσαν αἰτίαν. “Ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν" Οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε, ὅτι ὁ κτίσας 
ἐχά ἴ {0 “ ” sf fa 3 / > ¢ ”? Ἂς Ν [Ὁ Ν S 
am ἀρχῆς ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς 3” Kat τὰ ἑξῆς. Kat οἶμαι, 
ὅτι κατὰ τοῦτο προέτεινον τὸν λόγον ot Φαρισαῖοι τοῦτον, ὡς ἐπι- 
7 5 lal ¢ 9 Ἃ + Ὁ > x 4 S 
ληψόμενοι αὐτοῦ, ὅ τι ποτ’ ἂν εἴπῃ" οἷον εἰ μέν εἶπεν, ᾿ξεστιν, 
> , gar aK: DISCS A a ΄ \ ΄ δ τῆς ἂν Ὁ 
ἐνεκάλεσεν αὐτῷ, ὡς ἐπὶ τοῖς τυχοῦσι διαλύοντι τοὺς γάμους" εἰ δὲ, 
Οὐκ ἔξεστιν, ὡς καὶ μετὰ ἁμαρτημάτων ἐπιτρέποντι συνοικεῖν ἄνδρα 
yuvatki . . . 
O 9 € Υ ΄ / 5 A “Δ a “ > A 3 / 
UX EWPwWV TE τίνα τρόπον ἀνεπιλήπτως Kal σοφῶς αὐτοῖς ἀποκρίι! - 
εται, πρότερον μὲν ἀποφάσκων τὸ ἀπολύειν τὴν γυναῖκα κατὰ πᾶσαν 
: τς 7 \ > 4 Ν \ x la ἂν Be \ 
αἰτίαν, δεύτερον δὲ ἀποκρινόμενος πρὸς TA περὶ τοῦ βιβλίου τοῦ κατὰ 
> » 5 C.F; Ν μή > “~“ > / ὮΝ / a nA ΄ ᾿ Ν 
τὸ ἀποστασιον" ἐώρα γὰρ, ὅτι οὐ πᾶσα αἰτία εὐλόγως λύει γάμον, καὶ 
“ ὃ A \ ” ὃ ςς ” “ \ cons 5 θ ΄ ΄, 
ὅτι δεῖ τὸν ἄνδρα “συνοικεῖν " τῇ γυναικὶ, “ws ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει 
5 / \ ”? \ / x > ἴω \ 3 ξ » / \ 
ἀπονέμοντα τιμὴν" καὶ βαστάζοντα αὐτῆς τὰ ἐν ἁμαρτήμασι βάρη, καὶ 
A 3 Lal “ A ee 
δυσωπεῖ ἐκ τῶν ev TH 1 ενέσει ἐγγεγραμμένων τοὺς ext τοῖς Μωύσεως 
΄ > a Ῥ μὰ on ais 5) Se ” ε 
γράμμασιν αὐχοῦντας Φαρισαίους, λέγων τό Οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε ὄτι ὁ 
) 


/ beet 8 “ 4. 58 \ a > ΄ > Go te” \ NPS aay \ 
KTLOGS ἀπ APX7)S, GPPEV και θῆλυ επτοίηῆσεν αὕτους; και τὰ εξης και 


ἐπιφέρων αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ" “Kat ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν " 
ἀκόλούθον τῷ “εἰς σάρκα μίαν," διδασκαλίαν, τήν᾽ ““Ὥστε οὐκέτι εἰσὶ 
δύο ἀλλὰ σὰρξ puta,” Δυσοπητικὸν δὲ πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀπολῦσαι τὴν 
rn £ Ων n CW ἀν \ ee 66°) Θ Ν ᾿ ” 0 Ἂν 
γυναῖκα κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν, καὶ τό eos συνέζευξεν, ἄνθρωπος μὴ 
χωριζέτω." 
Ki καὶ ἐδόξαμεν δὲ βαθυτέρων ἢ κατὰ δύναμιν ἧφθαι εἰς τοὺς τόπους 
4 SQN fal ΕΙΣ Ν Ἂν 7 οὗ Lal 7 ¢ ἧς 
πραγμάτων, οὐδὲν ἧττον ἔτι διὰ τὴν λέξιν καὶ ταῦτα λεκτέον ὅτι τινὲς 
τῶν νόμων ἐγράφησαν οὐχ ὡς διαφέροντες, GAN ὡς συμπεριφερόμενοι 
Τῇ ἀσθενείᾳ τῶν νομοθετουμένων᾽ τοιοῦτον γάρ τι δηλοῦται ἐν τῷ 
“Muvons πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν ἐπέτρεψεν ἀπολῦσαι τὰς 
A CRI) δ \ ΄ \ ΄ / an \ \ 
γυναῖκας ὑμῶν" τὸ δὲ προηγούμενον καὶ διαφέρον νόμου τοῦ διὰ τὴν 
σκληροκαρδίαν γεγραμμένου δηλοῦται ἐν τῷ" “AZ ἀρχῆς δὲ οὐ 
fe 2 2) Κ A> 3 ἊΣ oe δὲ Δ θή 2 > 7, θ » 
γέγονεν οὕτως. ζαὶ ἐν τῇ καινῇ δὲ Διαθήκῃ ἐστί τινα νενομοθετημένα 
ἀνάλογον τῷ" “Ὅτι Mwvons προς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν ἐπέτρεψεν 
ὑμῖν ἀπολῦσαι τὰς γυναῖκας ὑμῶν "᾽ οἵονει γὰρ πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν 
ἡ mn γ᾿ ὃ ἣν Ἂν > θέ £ ; τέ Ἂς x x 7 [2 
ὑμῶν γέγραπται διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τό Διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας ἕκαστος 
\ ε an a 2 z Ae / x JA 3" 2 2) \ Ἂ 
τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἐχέτω, καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα ἐχετω,᾽ καὶ τό" 


x \ fe 
«Τῇ γυναικὶ ὃ ἀνὴρ τὴν ὀφειλὴν ἀποδιδότω, ὁμοίως δέ καὶ ἡ γυνὴ τῷ 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. iii. pp. 12, sqq. 





a 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 187 


ἀνδρί. ᾿Ἐπιφέρεται γοῦν αὐτοῖς" ““'Γοῦτο δὲ λέγω κατὰ συγγνώμην, 
οὐ κατ᾽ ἐπιταγήν"" ἀλλὰ καὶ τό" ““Τυνὴ δέδεται ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ὁ 
Da Sick νΝΝ a aN \ [ὡς SN: Seer 2 Ψ 2 \ Ὁ Z 
ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς ζῇ ἐὰν δὲ κοιμηθῇ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν, ᾧ θέλει 
fl An / > K / 2) ΝΥ δ nr δί Ἄς θέ e Ta 
γαμηθῆναι, μόνον ev Κυρίῳ," πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ἢ ἀσθένειαν ἡμῖν 
ἊΝ 7 Sf ἴω N Fs “A Ν / ἮΝ 
παρὰ Παύλῳ εἴρηται τοῖς μὴ βουλομένοις ζηλοῦν τὰ χαρίσματα τὰ 

/ \ 4 fi ad Ν / "4 
μείζονα καὶ μακαριωτέροις γενέσθαι. "Hon de παρὰ γεγραμμένα καί 
τινες τῶν ἡγουμένων τῆς “HKKAnoias ἐπέτρεψάν τινα, ὥστε ζῶντος τοῦ 
ἀνδρὸς, γαμεῖσθαι γυναῖκα, παρὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον μὲν ποιοῦντες ἐν ᾧ 
λέλεκται" “Τυνὴ δὲ ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ᾧῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς," καὶ τό" "Apa 
οὖν μοιχαλὶς χρηματίσει ἣ γυνὴ γενομένη ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ ζῶντος τοῦ 
Ss Ν 2) > XN / λό ἐπ αν \ \ Ν ΄, 
ἀνδρὸς, οὐ μὴν πάντη ἀλόγως' εἰκὸς γὰρ τὴν συμπεριφορὰν ταύτην 
συγκρίσει χειρόνων ἐπιτρεπεσθαι παρὰ τὰ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς νενομοθετημένα 
καὶ γεγραμμένα. 

Τάχα δὲ τῶν τολμώντων τις ᾿Ιουδαΐκος ἀνὴρ ἐναντιοῦσθαι τῇ τοῦ 
Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν διδασκαλίᾳ, φήσει, ὅτι καὶ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς, εἰπών: “Ὅς ἂν 
ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν 

An Py meee / 3 No Ν fee. ε / M ‘& a ¢ iS 
μοιχευθῆναι,᾽ ἐπέτρεψεν ἀπολῦσαι τὴν γυναῖκα ὁμοίως Μωύσεῖ, ὅν εἶπε 
πρὸς τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν τοῦ λαοῦ νενομοθετηκέναι, καὶ ταὐτόν γε 

΄, 5 a is A ΄, 8v “ ANd n vA θ , 
φήσει εἶναι τῷ λόγῳ τῆς πορνείας, Ov ὅν εὐλόγως ἂν γυνὴ ἐκβληθείη 
ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς, τό: “Ὅτι εὗρεν ἐν αὐτῇ ἄσχημον πρᾶγμα." ᾿Αλλὰ 
λεκτέον πρὸς αὐτὸν, ὅτι, εἴπερ ἡ κατὰ τὸν νόμον μοιχωμένη λιθοβολη- 
θήσεται, δηλονότι οὐ κατὰ τοῦτο νοεῖται τὸ ἄσχημον πρᾶγμα" οὐ γὰρ 
SEAN / A / f ε / Ἄν ὦ / > \ A 
ἐπὶ μοιχείᾳ δεῖ γράφειν βιβλίον ἁποστασίου, καὶ διδόναι εἰς τὰς χεῖρας 

~ ἃς δὴ γ 5 oh 2 ᾿Αλλὰ BY / M ee eS 
τῆς γυναικὸς ἢ τινι τηλικαύτῃ ἀσχημοσύνῃ. a γὰρ τάχα Μωύσῆς 
πᾶν ἁμάρτημα ἄσχημον εἶπε πρᾶγμα ὅπερ ἐὰν εὐρεθῃ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀνδρος 
ἐν γυναικὶ μὴ εὑρισκούσῃ χάριν ἐνώπιον τοῦ ἀνδρος, γράφεται τὸ τοῦ 
ἀποστασίου βιβλίον, καὶ ἐξαποστέλλεται ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας τοῦ ἀνδρος ἡ 

7." } yD an \ > , “ 
γυνή" ᾿Απ’ ἀρχῆς δὲ οὐ γέγονεν οὕτως. 
. ει Ao a ὃ ~ » ΄ 2955 ἍΝ 

Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, μηδαμῶς ἐπιτρέπων ex ἄλλῳ 
ἁμαρτήματι διαλύειν γάμους ἢ μόνῃ πορνείᾳ εὑρισκομένῃ ἐν τῇ γυναικὶ, 


ὃ Os av ἀπολύ NV γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ εκτὸς λόγο ( ϊῖ 
τὸ ς ἄν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκ τοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ 


Μετὰ ταῦτά φησιν ὁ 


αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι." Ζητηθείη δ’ ἂν εἰ διὰ τοῦτο κωλύει τὴν γυναῖκα 
5 nN aX ΧΝ aX / Ν ¢€ GN vf b) 3 aA Ων 7 Ἃ 
ἀπολῦσαι, ἐὰν μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ μὲν AAW, φέρε δ᾽ εἰπεῖν, ἐπὶ φαρμακείᾳ ἢ 
ἀναιρέσει παρὰ τὴν ἀποδημίαν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, τοῦ γενηθέντος αὐτοῖς 
παιδίου, ἢ ἐφ᾽ οἵῳ δήποτε φόνῳ Hi δὲ καὶ ὑφαιρουμένη καὶ συλῶσα 
Ν br a « 7 “ > Ἂς - ’ Ν re BAT 2 
τὴν οἰκίαν εὑρεθείη τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, μὴ πορνεύουσα δὲ, ζητήσαι τις ἂν εἰ 
> Va x id > “ «ε “ SS an , Ων 
εὐλόγως τὴν τοιαύτην ἀποβαλεῖ, ὡς τοῦ Σωτῆρος κωλύοντος παρεκτὸς 
λόγου πορνείας ἀπολῦσαί τινα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα" ἑκατέρως γὰρ 
> / / > 5 Sopa? A» 4 ΄ \ 
ἐμφαίνεταί TL ἄτοπον, οὐκ οἶδα δὲ εἰ ἀληθῶς ἄτοπον" τηλικούτων yap 


ἀνέχεσθαι ἁμαρτημάτων, ἃ ἔοικεν εἶναι χείρονα μοιχείας καὶ πορνείας, 


188 HOLY MATRIMONY 


“ 5" “ ‘NV ΄ A 
ἄλογον εἶναι δόξει" πάλιν τ᾽ ἂν ποιῆσαι παρὰ τὸ βούλημα τῆς διδασ- 
id NEN la A“ Ἃ ε » 5 Ν / 
καλίας τοῦ Σωτῆρος, Tas ἂν ὁμολογήσαι ἀσεβὲς τυγχάνειν. 
> bd Ν A 
Ἐφίστημι τοίνυν διὰ τί μὲν οὐκ εἶπε ““ Μηδεὶς ἀπολυέτω τὴν γυναῖκα 
ay ν' 5 MZ \ A 
αὑτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας," φησὶ δέ" "Os ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα 
“ ΄ a “ \ 
αὑτοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι"" ποιεῖ μὲν 
q Cai lal Ν ἴω ε 
γὰρ ὁμολογουμένως τὸ ὅσον ἐφ᾽’ ἑαυτῷ μοιχευθῆναι τὴν γυναῖκα ὁ 
“ ‘al Ἂ Ν 
ἀπολύων αὐτὴν οὐ πορνεύσασαν" εἰ γὰρ “ζῶντος τοῦ ἀνδρὸς μοιχαλὶς 
΄, oN ΄ 3 Nee we? )») 2 ΄ \ Mea" / 
χρηματίσει, ἐὰν γένηται ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ," ἀπολύσας δὲ αὐτὴν, πρόφασιν 
A an “Ὁ > Ἂ 
αὐτῇ δίδωσι δευτέρου γάμου, δηλονότι παρὰ τοῦτο ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευ- 
la a 5) 7 , 
θῆναι" τὴν δὲ ἁλοῦσαν φαρμακίδα, ἢ φόνον δράσασαν, ἀπολογίαν ἔχειν 
’ = a 4 \ Ni 
ἢ μὴ, καὶ ov ζητήσαις ἄν" δύναται yap καὶ παρ᾽ ἄλλας αἰτίας, Tapa τὴν 
~ ἴων ~~ nw ᾿ Y nw 
ἀπόλυσιν, ποιεῖν ὁ ἀνὴρ μοιχευθῆναι τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα, οἷον πέρα TOV 
, 3 7 5 ἥν / [4 ia Ἂν 5 / 
δέοντος ἐπιτρέπων αὐτῇ πράττειν ἃ βούλεται, καὶ εἰς φιλίαν συγκατα- 
© nN ΕῚ an 
βαίνειν ἀνδράσιν οἷς βούλεται: πολλάκις yap ἐξ ἁπλότητος τῶν ἀνδρῶν 
“A 7 / Mates ΔΩ > ΝΥ > y; 7 
τοιαῦτα πταίσματα ocvpPaivery γυναιξίν: a εἰ ἔστιν ἀπολογίας 
ν a las 7 
τόπος, ἢ μὴ; τοῖς τοιούτοις ἀνδράσιν ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις συμπτώμασιν, 
5 “~ 7 5 “Ὁ Ἂν a \ > 7 «ε lal ἣν Ν 
ἐπιμελῶς ζητήσας ἀποφανεῖς καὶ εἰς τὰ ἐπηπορημένα ἡμῖν κατὰ τὸν 
/ ἀν το ἧς 5 “Ἂ x > x “ ἧς ( SN A 5 ἣν 
τόπον. Καὶ ἀποστερῶν δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς γυναικὸς ἑαυτὸν, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν πολ- 
λ 7 las Ἂν 9 a“ 5 lay \ See ἢ x 1d 
άκις μοιχευθῆναι, μὴ ἐκπληρῶν αὐτῆς Tas ὀρέξεις, κἂν φαντασίᾳ 
πλείονος σεμνότητος καὶ σωφροσύνης τὸ τοιαῦτο ποιῇ" Kal τάχα 
μᾶλλον οὗτος ἐπίληπτος ὁ τὸ ὅσον ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ ποιῶν αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι 
Ἂν 5 ¥ ἊΝ Lal 3 lay \ J AG Ἃ «ς 5 x , 3 \ Ν ue 7 
μὴ ἐκπληρῶν αὐτῆς τὰς ὀρέξεις, ἢ ὁ ἀπολύσας αὐτὴν παρεκτὸς λόγου 
μὲν πορνείας, ἐπὶ φαρμακείᾳ δὲ, ἢ φόνῳ, ἢ τινι τῶν βαρυτάτων ἁμαρτη- 
/ e \ 7 > Χ vx = Ὁ > \ δ 
μάτων. “Ὥσπερ δὲ μοιχαλίς ἐστι γυνὴ, κἂν δοκῃ γαμεῖσθαι ἀνδρὶ, ἔτι 
lay lay lal Ta > 
ζῶντος τοῦ προτέρου οὕτως Kal ἀνὴρ δοκῶν γαμεῖν ἀπολελυμένην οὐ 


A ees awn a con Sees ¢ ΄ 
γάμει, κατὰ Τὴν TOV «ὠτΉρος ἡμῶὼν ἀπόφασιν, οσον JLOLX EVEL, 


In Leviticum Homilia, xi. § 2.3 

Secundum legem adulter et adultera morte moriebantur, nec 
poterant dicere poenitentiam petimus et veniam deprecamur. Non 
erat lacrymis locus, nec emendationi ulla concedehatur facultas, sed 
omnimodo puniri necesse erat, qui incurrisset in legem, . . . Apud 
Christianos vero si adulterium fuerit admissum, non est praeceptum 
ut adulter vel adultera corporali interitu puniantur; nec potestas 
data est episcopo ecclesiae adulteram praesenti morte damnare, sicut 
tunc secundum legem fiebat a presbyteris populi. . . . Nune vero 
non infertur poena corpori, nec purgatio peccati per corporale sup- 
plicium constat, sed per poenitentiam ; quam utrum quis digne gerat, 
ita ut mereri pro ea veniam possit, videto. Multi sunt enim, qui 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. pp. 582, 533. 





νας ὁ σον ΝΣ δ δὰ 


Ss 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 189 


nec ad hoe inclinantur, nec poenitentiae refugium quaerunt; sed 
cum ceciderint, surgere ultra nolunt, delectantur in eo luto quo 
haeserint volutari. 
S. Cyprian. 
Testimonia adversus Judaeos, lib, 111. c. 90.1 

Uxorem a viro non recedere, aut si recesserit, Innuptam manere. 

In Epistola Pauli ad Corinthios prima: “ [15 autem quae nupserunt 
praecipio non ego, sed Dominus, uxorem a ὙΠῸ non separari; si 
autem recesserit, manere innuptam, aut reconciliari viro, et virum 
uxorem non dimittere.” 


De Disciplina et Bono Pudicitiae, cap. 6.2 ([ 5. Cyprian.) 
Hane sententiam Christus quando uxorem dimitti non nisi ob 
adulterium dicit interrogatus, tantum honorem pudicitiae dedit. 
Hine nata est illa sententia: Adulteras non sinetis vivere, 


THE APOsTOLICcAL CANONS. 
Canon 47.8 
Εἴ τις λαϊκὸς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἐκβάλλων, ἑτέραν λάβῃ, ἢ παρ᾽ 


ἄλλου ἀπολελυμένην, ἀφοριζέσθω. 


CounciL oF ELIBERIS. 
Canon 8.4 


Item foeminae, quae, nulla praecedente causa, reliquerint viros 
suos, et se copulaverint alteris, nec in fine accipiant communionem. 


Canon 9. 


Item foemina fidelis, quae adulterum maritum reliquerit fidelem, 
et alterum ducit, prohibeatur ne ducat ; si duxerit, non prius accipiat 
communionem, nisi quem reliquerit, prius de saeculo exierit; nisi 
forte necessitas infirmitatis dare compulerit. 


Canon 64.° 


Si qua mulier usque in finem mortis suae cum alieno viro fuerit 
moechata, placuit, nec in fine dandam ei esse communionem. Si 
vero eum reliquerit, post decem annos accipiat communionem, acta 
legitima poenitentia. 

1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 804. 2 Thid. tom, ii. p. 855. 


3 Mansi, tom. i. p. 40. * [bid. tom, i..p. 7. 
5 Ibid, tom, ii. p. 16. 


Introduc- 
tory state- 
ment. 


Position of 
the Early 
Christians. 


190 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canon 65. 


Si cujus clerici uxor fuerit moechata, et scierit eam maritus suus 
moechari, et non eam statim projecerit, nec in fine accipiat com- 
munionem: ne ab his, qui exemplum bonae conversationis esse 
debent, ab eis videantur scelerum magisteria procedere. 


Canon 70. 


Si cum conscientia mariti uxor fuerit moechata, placuit, nec in fine 
dandam esse communionem; si vero eam reliquerit, post decem 
annos accipiat communionem. 


Canon 78. 


Si quis fidelis, habens uxorem, cum Judaea vel gentili fuerit 
moechatus, a communione arceatur. Quod si alius eum detexerit 
post quinquennium, acta legitima poenitentia, poterit dominicae 


soeclari communionl. 


The period immediately following the institution of Christ’s 
kingdom upon earth must always be at once the most impor- 
tant corroborative source for the teaching of our Lord and His 
Apostles which tradition can supply, and also the period which 
is of all the most scantily furnished with formal and authori- 
tative utterances. On the subject of the indissolubility of 
Christian marriage both these characteristics are very marked. 
The first three centuries of the Christian era supply several 
remarkable indications of the spirit of the Church, which is 
also presumably, in the absence of proof to the contrary, the 
spirit of the teaching of the Apostles; but it is not till the 
beginning of the fourth century that we begin to have the 
canons of synods and councils, authoritative utterances of the 
Church as such. 

Before proceeding to examine the authorities which we have, 
it will be well to recall the position of the early Christians 
generally with regard to marriage. Marriage to them was 
pre-eminently a subject as to which laws were only required 
for law-breakers. The Roman law met every need in the cases’ 
of all those Christian men and women who, having contracted 
in the first instance a marriage which no impediment barred, 
lived chastely together till death severed the tie. That most 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 191 


married Christians would so live during the times of contempt 
and persecution is sufficiently obvious. It was not among 
persons of lax and unrestrained methods of life that the 
Christian faith found its adherents in the first three centuries. 
It was not in the little band of the faithful that adultery could 
find a natural home. We should probably not be far wrong in 
surmising that when it did occur the impenitent adulterer 
would incline to lapse into heathenism. At that time there 
could be nothing to gain by a profession of Christianity in the 
case of one who would make no attempt to escape from the 
condition of deadly sin. And in such a case the lapse of morals 
would to the Christian community seem to merge in, and to be 
overshadowed by, the lapse of faith. 

But, without dwelling on the merely conjectural, it is cer- 
tainly fair to assume that the sin of adultery would be rare 
among the Christians of the early ages. Yet since the world, 
the flesh, and the devil are permitted to try us, their work 
always has to be reckoned with, and so the early Christians 
appear to have found. In the sin of adultery, as in some other 
sins against the sanctity of marriage, there were some, if not 
many, offenders. The offences, when they did occur, brought 
out into a clear light the fact that the Christian subjects of the 
empire lived under two systems of law, which could be much 
at variance. There was the law of Rome, and there was the 
law of Christ. Wherever the Roman laws of marriage could 
be conscientiously complied with, there everything conspired to 
encourage such compliance. In the many social relations with 
non-Christians, which at first were of necessity all but univer- 
sally entertained,? there would be singularities on the part of 
Christians which were obtrusive enough without the obtrusion 
of any peculiar features which could be avoided. In not a few 
circumstances the Christian bad no alternative but to “come 
out” from the world, and to “be separate”; and for that very 
reason it would be with him a matter at once of obvious 
expediency and of eager welcome to conform to common usage 





1 Compare Origen, Jn Leviticwm Homilia xi. ᾧ 2, “Cum eeciderint, surgere 
ultra nolunt, delectantur in eo luto quo heeserint volutari,”’ 
a1 Cory.ct0, 


Contrast of 
the law of 
Rome and 
the law of 
Christ. 


The 
Roman law 


Facility of 
divorce. 


192 HOLY MATRIMONY 


wherever he could. In the matter of marriage, however, it 
became necessary from time to time to emphasize the fact that 
the law of Christ prohibited what was permitted by the law of 
Rome. By 139 A.p. 8. Justin Martyr contrasts “some human 
law” with “the account of our Teacher.”! In 177 AD., or 
thereabouts, Athenagoras speaks of the Christian rules of 
marriage as “the laws which have been laid down by us” (τοὺς 
vp ἡμῶν τεθειμένους νόμους.)" Such laws were the rules pro- 
hibiting the Roman laxity of divorce,’ the marriage of Christians 
with non-Christians,* and the marriage of persons related in 
ways which presented no bar to the secular marriage.’ In all 
cases, however, in which there was no conflict between the 
Roman law, and “the laws which have been laid down by us,” 
the provisions of the Roman law appear to have been accepted 
and followed without doubt or hesitation. It becomes there- 
fore important to our present enquiry to know what, during 
the first three centuries of the Christian era, was in fact the 
law of Rome in the matter of divorce. That law was, in truth, 
as regards the sanctioned grounds of divorce, appallingly simple. 
As the essential part of a marriage was held by the law to be 
mutual consent, it had come to be held that when this consent 
was at an end, the marriage would naturally terminate. 
Accordingly either party might declare his or her intention to 
dissolve the marriage. Ordinarily no judicial decree, no inter- 
ference of any public authority whatsoever, was required to 
dissolve a marriage. <A bill of divorce was commonly given, 
and where the marriage had been solemnized by certain of the 
forms which constituted a conventio in manum, there were also 
special forms for the dissolution of the marriage. A marriage 
by confarreatro, a form of marriage which under Tiberius was 
already very rare, was dissolved by the ceremony of diffarreatio ;® 
while a marriage by co-emptio called for the process of reman- 
cipatio. For a marriage by usus there does not appear to have 
been any special formality of divorce. 


1 Apologia prima, καὶ 15. 2 Legat. c. 33. 

8 §. Matt. xix. 9; S. Matt. v. 32; S. Mark x. 11, 12; S. Luke xvi. 18; 
A Coren 10. 11- 

41 Cor. vii. 39; 2 Cor.*vi. 14. ΠΥ Lexile sxe 

ὁ Hunter, Roman Law, p. 227, quoting Plutarch, Quast. Rom. p. 270. 

7 Thid. quoting Gaius i. 136 A. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 193 


For those who were married in the manner almost universally 
adopted in the times of the emperors, that is to say, without 
any conventio ir manum, divorce could be altogether informal, 
except that after the promulgation of the lew Julia de adulterits, 
a bill of divorce had to be given in the presence of witnesses, 
But in all cases the ground of the dissent of both or even of one 
of the parties appears to have been held sufficient! It must 
not indeed be left out of sight that the laxity of practice 
which followed on this permission was mourned by all right- 
minded Romans. Laws even were enacted which in the case 
of divorce on slender grounds by one of the parties so regulated 
the distribution of the dowry, and of the estate of the parties, 
as to amount to the infliction of fines and penalties for such 
divorces.2. But the permission of divorce remained, making it 
possible for any Christian man or woman in a moment of 
passion to lawfully repudiate his or her consort so far as the 
secular law was concerned. Nor did the restrictions affecting 
persons make much real difference in practice. /ili-famalias 
could not indeed divorce their wives without the consent of 
those under whose potestas they lived. By the lee Papia 
Poppaca again a freedwoman who had married her patronus 
could not divoree herself? But, despite these limitations, the 
canker was everywhere, and the Christian community had to 
reckon with it. 

To the Christian feeling of a later age probably the laxity of 
the Roman law and of Roman practice regarding divorce will 
be felt to be most painful, just where to the Roman it was 
most unexceptionable. Mutual consent without other cause 
assigned appears to have been the most frequent, as it was the 
most facile, ground of divorce. The stricter Roman citizens 
felt that the licence of granting divorces which were demanded 
by one party but deprecated by the other, even though it could 
plead the cessation of mutual assent to the marriage tie, had 
nevertheless some element of breach of contract, in that it 
failed to supply that mutual assent to the discontinuance of 
the tie which in the case of other contracts was commonly 








1 Hunter, Roman Law, pp. 689, 690. 2 Ibid. p. 691. 
Pe iGesl XXIV, 2.11. 
O 


Divorce by 
mutual 
consent, 


The /ex 
Julia de 
adulteriis. 


194 HOLY MATRIMONY 


forthcoming: but, so far as the evidence goes, it never even 
occurred to the Roman legislators of the early centuries of the 
Christian era that where mutual consent to a divorce was 
present any legal objection was possible, or any further ground 
for the divorce could be required. If husband and wife were 
of one mind in wishing their mutual relations to come to an 
end, they brought them to an end. The law not only did not 
interfere, but would have been held to have no locus stand in 
the matter. Not till the time of Justinian did any Roman 
legislator dare to interfere with the freedom of divorce by 
mutual consent. The long struggle of Christian teaching with 
the Roman facility of divorce by mutual consent will be 
referred to in a later section of this chapter. 

Very important for the proper understanding of the position 
taken up by the early Christians in the matter of separation of 
life is the lex Julia de adultervis coercendis (17 B.c.), which at the 
period now being considered regulated the procedure in the 
case of the adultery of the wife. By this law the husband 
who retained his wife after an act of adultery was known to 
him, and forgave the adulterer, was held to be himself guilty 
of the offence of lenocinvum. Sixty days were allowed to the 
husband under whose manus, or father under whose potestas, 
the adulteress was living, within which proceedings against 
her might be commenced. After that time any other person 
might prosecute. The woman so convicted of adultery was 
deprived of half her dowry (dos), and the third part of her 
other property, and was banished to some small island. The 
adulterer lost half his property, and was similarly banished, but 
not to the same island as the woman. There were also certain 
civil disabilities. , 

With regard to this law it is important to notice that 
(a) the husband was bound to put away the wife whose 
adultery became known to him, under pain of being himself 
held guilty of the offence of lenociniwm, that (b) the repentance 
of the wife, and her dismissal of the adulterer, appear to have 
made no exception to this rule, and that (c) while the wife’s 
adultery was thus held to be a serious crime, the husband's 


1 Tacitus, Annals, ii. 85. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 195 


connection with another woman was in no way the subject of 
attention on the part of the law, provided the woman was not 
the wife of another. In that case, and in that case only, was 
an unfaithful husband regarded as an adulterer.1 

The lee Julia thus makes very clear the Roman feeling as 
regards divorce for adultery; but in interpreting this law, as 
indeed all the other early Roman laws of marriage, it must not 
be overlooked that marriage and divorce constituted a subject 
which the law rather ventured to guide than assumed to control. 
Just as, throughout the considerable legislation which assigned 
penalties to divorces under specified circumstances, the law 
never dared to pronounce such divorces to be actually void and 
bad in law; so, on the other hand, if in spite of the lex Julia 
de adulteriis coercendis, the husband chose to incur the odium 
and penalties of lenocintwm by continuing marital relations, the 
law would not go so far as to pronounce such continuance of 
the marriage status invalid. It is also certain that if the 
husband was content to retain the adulterous wife, the cases 
would be very rare in which any other person would make it 
his business to bring home to the husband the odium and 
penalties of lenociniwm by any legal process. 

We have now before us the chief points of the Roman Law ,, | 
as it affects divorce. The Christian, when he demurred to Christian 
divorce on the ground of the discontinuance of consent by one ae of 
or both of the parties, would be in opposition to the current ‘ifference. 

: : "4 2 ᾿ Divorce by 

and legalised practice. In certain cases his attitude would not consent. 
be without the weighty moral support of some of the best of 
Romans, but in others he would find himself standing alone. 
When adultery on the part of a wife occurred, he was bound Divorce for 
by the law to prosecute her and put her away; as we shall see, chant 
he was by the Christian custom at liberty to put her away, and 
bound to do so if the adultery continued. He would not in 
consequence feel at liberty to marry again, as the non-Christian 
Roman would under similar circumstances; but he would be in 
no conflict with the law on that account, since the law laid 
upon him no obligation to remarry. The point of remarriage 





1 For the provisions of the lew Julia de adulteriis coercendis see the Digest, 
xlviii. tit. 5; and Paulus, Sentent. Recept. ii. tit. 26. 
0 2 


Case of the 
penitent 
offender. 


The sin of 
the 
husband. 


Remarriage 
after 
divorce. 


196 HOLY MATRIMONY 


is obviously separate from that of putting away, and will be 
again adverted to. There was a serious difference with the law 
in the case where the wife was penitent, and indeed whensoever 
the wife became penitent; for the Roman law punished her for 
her crime, while the Christian husband restored her for her 
penitence. Perhaps a still more marked contrast with the tone 
of the Roman Law and of Roman society, was afforded by the 
view taken in the Christian Church of the sin of a husband 
with an unmarried woman. To the Roman Law it was simply 
stuprum ; to the Christian it was adultery, and exactly parallel 
with the offence of the wife. It involved the right, if not the. 
expediency, of the putting away of the offending husband by 
the injured wife; a right not indeed denied by the Roman Law 
in any case, but entirely opposed to its spirit so far as this 
particular offence supplied the ground of action. The great 
question of all as between the Roman and the Christian laws 
of marriage and divorce would doubtless arise on the point of 
the possibility of remarriage. By the Roman Law every 
divorced person was at liberty to remarry, even though the 
eround of separation was merely the dissent of one of the 
parties. The Christian Law was here in necessary antagonism. 
It is an antagonism which is constantly stated. It could not 


fail to be markedly apparent on many occasions. In the one 


case in which the putting away of wife or husband received 
general Christian sanction, the innocent spouse must have been 
sometimes led to question the righteousness of a restriction 
unknown outside the Church. Where such questionings are 
recorded in the first three centuries, the answers are uniformly 
against remarriage. On the other hand, if this one case had 
provided a remarkable instance in which the Christian law 
coincided with the law of Rome, while everywhere else it was 
in opposition to it, the relief of the strain just where it became 
most trying would surely bring some recognition. We shall 
find no such recognition except in the case of the women whose 
remarriage 15 related by Origen to have received the sanction of 
certain bishops. Origen, however, in mentioning the fact of 
such sanction, condemns it as “contrary to the scripture.” 
Again, if any passage of Holy Scripture was understood in the 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 197 


early centuries to sanction remarriage after divorce, we might 
reasonably expect that passage to be quoted. The only passage 
which might be readily so understood, viz., 8. Matthew xix. 9, 
is never quoted to that end. 

We may now enquire what the evidence is in detail. The Points of 
points which have to be borne in mind throughout the ERS 
investigation appear to be mainly these: 


μεὲ 


. Whether the husband may put away for πορνεία. 
2. Whether the husband ought to put away for πορνεία. 
3. Whether the wife may put away for πορνεία. 
4, Whether the wife ought to put away for πορνεία. 
5. Whether πορνεία means post-nuptial unfaithfulness. 
6. Whether πορνεία means unchastity before marriage. 
7. Whether πορνεία should be understood in a wide sense, as 
covering various forms of spiritual or figurative adultery. 
8. Whether the guilty woman may remarry during the life- 
time of the partner. 
9. Whether the guilty man may so remarry. 
10. Whether the innocent woman may so remarry. 
11. Whether the innocent man may so remarry. 
12. Whether the guilty wife may be received again on her 
penitence and amendment. 
13. Whether the guilty wife ought to be received again in 
this case. 
14, Whether the guilty husband may be received again on his 
penitence and amendment. 
15. Whether the guilty husband ought to be received again in 
this case. 
16. Whether the guilty wife may be received again without 
penitence and amendment. 
17. Whether the guilty husband may be received again without 
penitence and amendment. 
18, Whether S. Matthew xix. 9 is ever referred to on the 
point of remarriage. 


The subject of the remarriage of converts will be reserved 
for another chapter as involving an altogether different question, 
the question, that is to say, of the dissolubility of non-Christian 


Hermas. 


Adulterous 
wife to be 
dismissed. 


Penitent 
wife to be 
restored. 


Husband to 
remain un- 
married. 


198 HOLY MATRIMONY 


marriage. The question of dissolubility or indissolubility now 
before us has reference to Christian matrimony only. 

The first Christian writer who alludes to the subject after 
S. Paul is Hermas, an inhabitant of Rome, probably though 
not certainly the Hermas alluded to in 8. Paul’s Epistle to the 
Romans.! In the Shepherd, a book dating from about 75 A.D., 
and of such weight in sub-Apostolic times that it was read in 
the services of the Church as Holy Scripture, Hermas is clear 
on the point that a Christian, “if he know that his wife hath 
sinned, and hath not done penance, but abideth in her fornication, 
and he still liveth with her as a husband, will be guilty of her 
crime, and partaker of her adultery.”? Here the Christian 
sentiment is quite at one with the lex Julia de adulteriis ; the 
husband who retains the adulteress is guilty of connivance of 
adultery, of Jlenocinium. To avoid this, “let the husband 
dismiss her, and let him abide by himself.’ Separation of life 
then is a duty, and not merely a permission. The question of 
remarriage is hardly at this point entertained, The adulteress 
is to be put away. But the Angel of Penitence, who is 
represented as the speaker, has other advice “if the dismissed 
wife do penance, and desire to return to her husband.” In that 
ease, “if her husband receive her not, he sinneth, and bringeth 
a great sin upon himself. It is his duty to receive the woman 
which is a sinner, who hath done penance.” Here Hermas is 
in direct opposition to the law of Rome. The mercy of Christ 
to the penitent sinner must be the mercy. of the Christian. 
And this mercy supplies one ground at least for another rule 
which is in even more startling opposition to the law and to 
the practice of the Empire. If the husband had been bound 
to put the adulteress away, he is no less bound to remain 
unmarried for her sake. “With a view then to her penance, 
the husband ought not, having sent his own wife away, to 
marry another. . . . For this cause is it commanded to you 
both to abide single, both husband and wife; because that in 
such a case there may be penitence.” The reason assigned is 
touching in its charity ; we are already a whole world removed 
from the attitude of the Julian law. Yet the writer does not 





Romans xvi, 14, 2 Hermas, Pastor, Mandatum iv. 





| 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 199 


forget that there is another reason; in the language of a later 
day the parties are bound by the vinculwm of Christian marriage. 
“The matter stands on the same footing on the man’s side as 
on the woman’s.” 

We seem to have here the line of argument familiar in later 
writers. They have argued that since our Lord has laid down 
that the woman who is put away is, with her partner, guilty of 
adultery if she remarry, clearly she is bound to her husband 
still. If then she is bound to him, the vinewlwm remains; he 
too is bound to her. As Hermas has it: “The matter stands 
on the same footing on the man’s side as on the woman’s.” 
These indeed are all the words of Hermas on this point, and 
the words just used to explain them employ, as we have said, 
the language of a later age; but how explain them else? They 
follow immediately on the statement that “the husband ought 
not, having sent his own wife away, to marry another.” One 
is innocent, the other guilty; but as regards remarriage, “ the 
matter stands on the same footing on the man’s side as on the 
woman’s.” Each is married to the other; neither therefore is 
at liberty to marry again. 

It is noticeable in respect of the true reading of 8. Matthew 
xix. 9, that there is no hint of any teaching of our Lord which 
seems at variance with this conclusion. “It is commanded 
to you both to abide single,” nor does Hermas know of any 
exception to the command which applies to the case before 
him. | 

Hermas has no difficulty in understanding πορνεία to mean 
post-nuptial adultery. He says that the husband is a “ partaker 
of her adultery,” if after “he knows of her sin, the wife repent 
not but continue in her πορνεία." 

There is another point of considerable importance touched 
upon in the passage quoted from Hermas. Does the adultery 
which sanctions or requires separation of life include anything 
other than literal adultery ἢ Hermas says that it does. “He 
too who maketh an image committeth adultery.” And idolatry 
being thus on the same footing as literal adultery, ought, he 
thinks, while it lasts, to require and not merely to sanction 
separation. “And if she persist in those doings, and do no 


S. Matthew 


xix, 9. 


Meaning of 
πορνεία. 


Spiritual 
adultery. 


200 HOLY MATRIMONY 


penance, retire thou from her, and in no wise live with her: 
else thou too wilt be partaker of her sin.” It will be seen as 
we proceed that Hermas is by no means alone in this opinion, 
that there is a certain spiritual fornication which may justify 
separation of life. 

S. Justin The next voice comes to us after the lapse of sixty-four 

Taek years. It is that of 8. Justin Martyr, whose First Apology for 
the Christians was addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius 
and his sons in 139 a.p. In it he says that our Lord, whose 

Remarriage “Word was the power of Gop,’ had taught, among other 

of divorced ‘ 

wife precepts of higher moral tone than was usual among the 

adultery. Romans, that “he that marrieth one put away by another man 
committeth adultery.” The case of the innocent husband in 
a divorce for adultery is not here included, nor are we neces- 
sarily to understand that the woman put away is put away for 
adultery ; but there is no suggestion that a woman divorced 
for adultery is released thereby from the marriage bond, and 
so at liberty to marry. So far as the words go, they indicate 
that there are no exceptions, but that any woman put away by 
her husband would be guilty of adultery if she were to marry 
another man. Such teaching had already made in the Christian 
mind the most marked distinction between the Christian rules 
and human laws such as those of the Roman empire. “They 
who under some human law contract bigamy are sinners in the 
account of our Teacher.” Keble remarks upon this passage 
that “the Emperors are challenged to make enquiry; which 
negatives any suspicion that S. Justin was giving his own 

theory, not declaring the received system of the Church.”? 

First re’. In the Second Apology, S. Justin records a very interesting 

ΘΠΕΟΡΑΡΆΣ case of separation of life? It is the first actual instance of 
such separation which finds a record in the history of the 
Christian Church. A woman who was a convert from 
heathenism had prior to her conversion led with her husband 
a life of irregular indulgence (ἀκολασταίνουσα). On accepting 
the Christian faith she reformed her ways, and though her 





1S. Justin Martyr, Apologia Prima pro Christianis, § 14. 
2 Keble, Sequel of the Argument, Xe. p. 8. 
3S. Justin Martyr, Apologia Secunda, c. 2. 


Pz 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 201 


husband did not follow her to baptism, she evidently elected to 
remain with him after her baptism in accordance with S. Paul’s 
advice in 1 Corinthians vi. Her own condition therefore 
became from that time the condition of a Christian wife; her 
matrimony became holy matrimony; she was bound as much 
as any other Christian woman, although her husband was not 
similarly bound. The separation which followed cannot there- 
fore be regarded as coming under the head of that divorce 
upon conversion which will be considered in another chapter. 
The woman found that her husband did not amend his ways as 
she had hoped, and unfortunately the mischief did not end 
there, for he actively endeavoured to make her a party to 
certain refinements of sinful indulgence (παρὰ τὸν τῆς φύσεως 
νόμον, κιτ.λ.) To escape being involved in deadly sin, she 
availed herself of the permission of the secular law, and gave 
her husband a bill of divorce (τὸ λεγόμενον παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ῥεπούδιον), 
thus freeing herself from his power, and obtaining separation 
of life. In all probability, if the ground of divorce was stated 
in the instrument, it would be simple dissent on the part of 
the wife to the continuance of the marriage. Apart from this 
indeed the husband’s conduct would not have constituted a 
ground of divorce, nor would his conduct add any weight to 
her dissent, which was entirely sufficient. There is no hint 
that the lady married again. 

What is chiefly worthy of remark for our purposes in the 
case 1s that a Christian woman put away her husband, and 
that she did it on the real ground of sin on the husband’s part, 
which was not adultery, but only in some respects analogous 
to adultery. Her conduct appears to have encountered no 
blame from the Christian authorities, though it was not 
acceptable to her personal friends. 

We come next to another apologist, Athenagoras, who Athena- 
addressed his Legatio pro Christianis to the Emperor Marcus ip 
Aurelius somewhere about 177 A.D. He is the earliest advocate 
of those strong views against second marriages which in their 
rigorist development were a few years later a striking charac- 
teristic of the Montanism of Tertullian. Christians, according 
to Athenagoras, would either remain unmarried or be content 


202 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Allsecond With a single marriage! Any second union was but a reputable 

marriages adultery (εὐπρεπής μοιχεία). Our Lord Himself had forbidden 

sible. one class of second marriages, those following on divorce, with 
the plain statement that the person remarrying was an 
adulterer. In the other class of second marriages, that is to 
say, marriages after the death of the first wife, the husband 
remarrying was but a veiled adulterer. 

The views here expressed on digamy, which soon found 
uncompromising expression in Tertullian, have been universally 
rejected by the Church. As regards controversies of the 
present day they are perhaps chiefly remarkable as shewing 
how impossible would have been the admission of polygamous 
unions in the Church of the first three centuries. ‘The passage 
which has been cited is, however, important in our present 
connexion as shewing that Athenagoras rejected the possibilty 
of the rightful remarriage even of the divorcing husband. 

Theophilus Theophilus of Antioch was bishop of that city in the latter 
a eas part of the second century. (A.D 171-183.) He wrote an 
Apology to Autolycus, who is represented as a cultivated 
heathen. In the third book,? refuting the charges of immorality 
Bones of brought against the Christians, he claims for them a morality 
and higher than that of others, and quotes “the voice of the 
moratity, gospel” as follows: “Every man who sees another’s wife to 
lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his 
heart; and he,” saith it, “who marrieth a woman put away by 
her husband committeth adultery ; and whoso putteth away his 
wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit 
adultery.” The contrast in all three points between the 
Christian and the Roman law was marked. 
S. Clement 8. Clement of Alexandria is something more than a mere 
i ele witness to the opinions which were held or could be held in his 
day. He is a recognised authority in the Church. By birth 
either an Alexandrian or an Athenian, celebrated as the head 
of the catechetical school of Alexandria at the close of the 
second century (190-203 aA.p.), he was not only a renowned 
theological writer and teacher, but a man of wide and varied 





1 Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis, § 33. 
2. Theophilus of Antioch, 4d Autoiyewm, lib. 111. ο. 18. 


ee 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 203 


learning, and a master of Greek language and Greek thought. 
His quotations from Holy Scripture are often inaccurate, and 
appear to be from memory; but he is the earliest Greek writer 
who largely uses the scriptures of the New Testament, and, 
inaccuracies notwithstanding, his evidence as to the original 
readings of disputed passages is of the highest value. “Not 
unfrequently he is one of a very small group of witnesses who 
have preserved an original reading. (e.g. 1 Cor. 11. 13; vii. 3, 5, 
D0, 80} coc. 1 

The bearing of this on the text of 5. Matthew xix. 9 has 
already been referred to. The context of his citation of that ees pee 
verse 1s now before us.2, He says that Holy Scripture only wire 
permits the putting away of a wife on the ground of fornication, ΩΣ ἸῸΝ 
and “considers it adultery to contract another marriage during 
the lifetime of either of the separated parties.” Even if his 
citation from ὃ. Matthew xix. 9 be from memory, there is 
every reason why in such a connexion he should have re- 
membered the phrase καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, and shall marry 
another, if he had known it; but his citation has no such 
phrase, and he explains μοιχᾶται in the sense “compelleth her 
to commit adultery.” On another ground it is not to be 
supposed that 8. Clement was omitting by an oversight the 
case of the innocent husband who has put away an adulterous 
wife. He deals with the case expressly in one of the passages 
quoted from Stromata, 111. cap. 6. He quotes the words of the 
apostles, “If the case of a wife be thus, it is not good for the Remarriage 
man to marry,” as an interrogation; and he remarks, “They in τὰν ee 
making this enquiry sought to learn whether, when a wife has admitted. 
been found guilty on a charge of fornication, and has been put 
away, 1t is permitted to marry another.” In the opinion of 
S. Clement, the apostles understood our Lord, as he himself 
understood Him, to bar all remarriage. 

S. Clement then knows nothing of remarriage during the 
lifetime of the husband or wife, except to condemn it. On the 
subject of the pardon of the penitent adulteress he is at one 





1 Bp. Westcott, Article “Clement of Alexandria” in the Dictionary of 
Christian Biography. 
2 §. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ii. 23. 


Penitent 
wife to be 
restored. 


Tertullian. 


204 HOLY MATRIMONY 


with Hermas. It is a matter of desire that a divorced woman 
should “return to her husband.” Whosoever hinders this 
partakes of her sin. Here 8S. Clement feels that he has to 
justify his position. He does so by a mystical analogy, not 
perhaps without its beauty as a devotional thought, but of 
little value as an argument. But such as it is, the analogy is 
used to justify the restoration of the penitent adulteress.' 

To sum up the opinions of 8. Clement: He recognises that a 
man may put away his wife for the cause of fornication; to 
his mind Holy Scripture “considers it adultery to contract 
another marriage during the lifetime of the separated parties ” ; 
and he is of opinion that the adulteress should be restored by 
her husband on her penitence. 

While S. Clement was teaching in Greek at Alexandria, 
another great writer of the African continent, born at Carthage 
sometime in the middle of the second century, was pouring 
forth treatise after treatise in Latin. Tertullian, “the first of 


the great Latin Fathers in point of date, their chief in fire and 


daring, and the first to create a technical Christian Latinity,’? 
was converted to Christianity in 192 A.D., and was shortly 
afterwards ordained priest, probably exercising his ministry at 
Carthage. His apologetic writings and several other works 
were written during the next few years. Then, driven from 
the Church as it would seem by the envy of the Roman clergy 
on the one hand, and by the rasping severity of his own jude- 
ments on the other, he became a Montanist (c. 199-203 A.D). 
Able, but hotly partisan and not over-scrupulous in every cause 
he took in hand, he is rather to be looked upon as a witness to 
the practice of his day, than as himself an authority. 
Especially is this the case of the works written during his 
Montanism. | 

The passages printed above are from various treatises. The 
treatises Ad Uxorem and De Patientia were written while he 





1 “For, if you mark it, as the fallen woman liveth indeed unto sin, but is 
dead to the commandments, so the penitent, being as it were newborn in her 
effectual conversion, has a regeneration unto life, the old harlot being dead, and 
she that is born in the way of penitence having come to life again.” 

2 Prof, Fuller, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, art. Tertullianus. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 205 


was in the Church (c. 197-199 a.p.). The same seems to have 
been the case with the first edition of the Adversus Murcionem 
(c. 200 A.D.); as we have it, however, the treatise is assigned to 
the fifteenth year of Severus, or 208 A.D., and it bears the 
marks of a good deal of revision effected in the Montanist 
period. The De Monogamia, of all the treatises which 
Tertullian wrote perhaps the most distressing to the orthodox 
reader, may have been written about 207 A.D., or about 217 A.D, 
It breathes the hard Montanist spirit in its most hateful mood, 

The citations from this work, though last in point of time, 
may perhaps with convenience be noticed first. In reading 
them we are painfully struck by the persistence with which 
Tertullian denies the lawfulness of the remarriage of those 
whose consorts have been taken away by death. In this, it 
need hardly be said, he is distinctly at variance at once with 
Holy Scripture, and with the whole tradition of that Catholic 
Church of nineteen centuries which is known to us. But the 
very inadmissibility of the contention makes the argument 
from practice which is put forward to support it the more 
valuable. Tertullian speaks of “those sentences also which 
our Lord uttered in reconsidering divorce, when now forbidding 
it, after it had been sometime allowed,” and reasons “that if 
‘what Gop hath joined man may not put asunder’ by divorce, 
it is but consistent that those whom Gop hath separated by 
death, man should not conjoin in marriage.”! The parallel 
shews plainly what the word repudwwm here means. It must 
necessarily mean that entire severing of the marriage bond 
which admits remarriage. This, Tertullian says, our Lord 
forbade “after it had been sometime allowed.” It is not 
contended merely that this would be the right understanding 
of our Lord’s teaching, but it is assumed that every one knows 
that divorced people are not to contract fresh marriages, and it 
is argued for the Montanist contention that this ought to shew 
the unlawfulness of digamy. 


Inadmis- 
sibility of 
rematriage 
after 
divorce 
assumed as 
undisputed, 


He proceeds to recast the same argument from our Lord’s Andas 


statement in 8S. Matthew v. 32, that the woman put away, 
she marry again, is together with her partner guilty of adultery. 





1 Tertullian, De Monogamia, § 9. 


if taught by 
our Lord. 


Christians 


206 HOLY MATRIMONY 


This shews, he argues, that, as we should say, the vinewlum still 
exists. “Because neither can the divorced woman lawfully 
marry, and if she have committed any sin of that kind without 
the name of matrimony, does it not admit the title of adultery 
on account of her matrimony, in that adultery is a crime 
incident to the marriage state ?”! It would not be possible for 
her to commit adultery, unless she had a husband. So that, 
notwithstanding the separation of hfe her husband is her 
husband still. Similarly, argues Tertullian, notwithstanding 
the separation of life when the husband dies, the husband is 
the husband still The inference has been rejected by 
Christendom: the basing of the argument upon the inability of 
a divorced person to contract a fresh marriage is of the utmost 
significance. The passage should be read in its entirety. He 
proceeds, “It is matrimony, when Gop unites two into one 
flesh ; or finding them previously joined in the same flesh hath 
set His seal to their union. It is adultery when, these two 
beimg in any way disunited, connexion takes place with 
another, nay an alien, flesh.” In the course of the argument 
Tertullian is found using the word repudiwm in the sense of 
separation of life. He says our Lord allowed “ divorce on one 
eround only, if haply the evil against which the precaution is 
directed have previously occurred.” But he goes on to say, 
comparing the Christian with the secular law: “They (the 
non-Christian Romans), while not divorcing, form adulterous 
connexions: we, though we divorce, may not find leave even to 


divorce, but marry.” The right of remarriage then forms no part of the 
4 Ὁ oO 


do not 
remarry. 


divorce which was permitted to Christians. Again, pressing 
his teaching that a widow ought to remain unmarried by the 
analogy of the divorced, he says: “The wife must needs 
continue in peace with her departed husband, whom she will 
now have no power to put away; and if she had,-not even so 
might she marry again.” 

A fruitful source of confusion may here be pointed out. It 
is common to Tertullian, the earliest of the Latin writers of 
Christendom, and to the latest canonist or theologian who may 
have written a treatise in the Latin language. The words 





1 Tertullian, De Monogamia, § 9. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 207 


diwvortium and vrepudiuwm, which are generally ‘used a8 The words 
synonymous and interchangeable, may either of them mean “um 
two things; they may mean what English lawyers call repudium. 
divortvum a mensa et thoro, divorce from bed and board, which 
involves separation of life, but no severance of the marriage 
bond or vinculwm, or they may mean that entire severance of 
the bond, which would put it in the power of the person 
divorced to contract a fresh marriage. Tither of these words 
is often used by the same writer in both of these senses on the 
Same page; and it may be taken as a canon for the study of 
the Latin theology of marriage, that the words divortium and 
repudium must on every single occasion of their use be 
challenged as to the meaning which is to be conveyed in that 
particular instance. 

The passage next quoted is from the fourth book against The teach- 
Marcion, and is remarkable as having been differently under- 8° "° 


treatise 
stood by such authorities as Pusey and Keble. Tertullian says, “Against 


“He hath forbidden divorce with a condition, if a man put ear 
away his wife to that end, that he may marry another... . 
Thus, if it was under a condition that He forbade putting 
away, He did not entirely forbid: and what He did not entirely 
forbid, He permitted in other cases, where the ground of 
prohibition does not hold.” Pusey understands that Tertullian 
here indicates a permission to remarry in certain cases.2 Keble 
says, “The meaning seems to be that ‘He allowed separation, 
if without a view to dissolution of marriage.”? Pusey says: 
“It is remarkable that Pamelius and others explain away 
this testimony of Tertullian, being opposed to the Roman 
practice, by reference to the treatise De Monog. c. 9, 10, 
written against the Church, and because he there does not 
allow of the marriage of the divorcing party, infer that neither 
does he here, forgetting that he there rejects second marriage 
altogether, even of the widowed, which he here admits.” But 
that Pamelius and Keble are right in their contention is 





1 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, lib. iv. ὁ. 34. 
* Pusey in Note O to Oxford translation of Tertullian, p. 431. 
3 Keble, Sequel to the Argument, &c. Ὁ. 18, note y. 


Instances 
of laxity. 


208 HOLY MATRIMONY 


abundantly clear from a passage in the fifth book of this same 
treatise against Marcion, which Pusey and all other writers on 
this subject appear to have overlooked. In this passage 
Tertullian says: “Christ, however, when He commands ‘the 
wife not to depart from her husband, or if she depart to remain 
unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband,’ has both permitted 
putting away (repudium) in that He has not altogether for- 
bidden it, and has confirmed [the bond of] marriage, in that 
He has first forbidden it to be severed.”1 This, then, may be 
taken to settle the question of the view taken by Tertullian, at 
the time when the treatise against Marcion was finally revised 
and assumed the shape in which we know it. It must not, 
however, be supposed that the treatise can be cited as having 
the authority of orthodoxy. Originally written in the years 
which preceded Tertullian’s lapse into Montanism, the revised 
edition of the treatise as it has come down to us dates, as 
before noticed, from the fifteenth year of Severus, or 208 A.D., 
and may even be subsequent to the Ve Monogamia.? All that 
can be certainly stated of these two treatises in the present 
connexion is that they permit separation of life for adultery ; 
that they forbid remarriage in every case during the lifetime of 
the partner; and that there is to be found throughout a tacit 
assumption that there is nothing in these positions which any 
Christian, orthodox or other, is likely to question. The 
treatises are not to be trusted as orthodox; but, as Keble 
suggests, if it had been usual for the orthodox to allow re- 
marriage after divorce, Tertulhan, with the views he held and 
the hard words he dealt, would certainly have charged them 
with it as with a corruption.® 

The passage next cited is from the Ad Uxorem, a treatise 
which is assigned to the orthodox years of Tertullian’s Chris- 
tianity. It is remarkable as apparently indicating instances, 
or at least an instance, of laxity of practice, while in no way 
implying that the Church had accorded any sanction to such 
laxity. Tertullian speaks of “certain women who, when by 





1 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, lib. v. c. 7. 
* Prof. Fuller, art. Tertullianus, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. 
3 Keble, Sequel to the Argument, p. 13. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 209 


divorce or by a husband’s death, an occasion of continency 
was offered, had not only thrown away the opportunity of 
so great a good, but even in marrying again had not chosen 
to remember the rule that, first and chiefly, they should 
marry in the Lord.”* The experience of most English- 
speaking countries for many years past has made it much 
easier than formerly for Anglican Churchmen to understand 
the relations of the Christians of the first three centuries to 
the secular law in the matter of divorce. 

Under the secular law of the Roman Empire nothing was 
easier than to effect on the mere ground of dissent a divorce 
which earried with it the right of remarriage. No questions 
were asked; no ecclesiastical authority had to be consulted ; 
the man or the woman was absolutely free in a moment of 
passion to divorce the wife or the husband, as the case might 
be, and to contract a new marriage; and to the secular law 
it mattered nothing whether the new consort were a Christian 
or a heathen. In such a case the matter would not in fact 
come before the Christian authorities at all till all this had been 
carried through, and. the question of discipline then arose, “Is 
the offending person to be retained in communion or not?” 
What answer was given to this question by the Christian 
synods as soon as they began to take up the matter, we shall 
presently see. Pending such decisions, our own experience of 
the past thirty-five years would seem to indicate that the 
action of individual diocesans would tend to vary. While to 
some it would be more than clear that there could be no mercy 
in glossing over a sinful licence, a course which to the indi- 
vidual was at least dangerous, and to the community might as a 
precedent be fraught with immense possibilities of evil; to 
others the wider views would’ not so readily occur, and the 
pressure of facts in the individual case would seem to be of 
more irresistible moment. These would be painfully conscious 
of the actual complication with the secular law; of the many 
extenuations which could be pleaded for a passionate action ; 
and of the remorse long since felt by the offending parties for 
those beginnings of evil which could not now be wiped away 





1 Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, lib. ii. 6: 1. 
P 


The cause 
which 
justifies 


dismissal is 


210 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and made as though they had not been. A passage from 
Origen will be shortly alluded to in which he distinctly states 
that certain governors of the Church, or bishops, had taken the 
laxer line in such cases, “ thus doing contrary to the Scripture.” 
It is possible, therefore, that in the cases alluded to by Ter- 
tullian there may have been an instance or two not only of 
remarriage before the secular law, but of the retention of the 
parties in the communion of the Church by the local Christian 
authorities. Tertullian, however, does not say so; and the 
silence of Tertullian is not without its weight as an argument 
against the existence of such sanction in any of the cases to 
which he refers. All that is contained in Tertullian’s state- 
ment, or can legitimately be inferred from it, amounts to this, 
that certain Christian women had availed themselves of the 
liberty of the secular law to contract second marriages after 
divorce. 

To Tertullian the exceptional cause which sanctions putting 
away, although it does not sanction remarriage, is post-nuptial 


post-nuptial Adultery. It will have been noticed in the passage cited from 


adultery. 


the De Monogamia that the equivalent of πορνεία employed by 
Tertullian is adulteriwm, a word indeed which, without 
explanation, might still have left room for doubt. But 
Tertullian is careful to explain exactly what he means by 
the word. He quotes as follows from 8S. Matthew v. 32, “‘He 
who shall send away his wife, except for some cause of adultery, 
makes her to commit adultery: and whosoever marrieth her 
that is put away from her husband’ of course ‘committeth 
adultery.’” He then goes on to say: “ Because neither can the 
divorced woman lawfully marry, and if she have committed 
any sin of that kind it admits not the title of adultery save 
on account of her matrimony, in that adultery is a crime 
incident to the marriage state.” In the text quoted the word 
adultertum occurs three times, being used once of the cause 
of separation, once of the character of the new marriage in the 
case of the woman put away, and once of the character of that 
marriage as it affects her second partner. To explain the use 
of the word in the last two cases Tertullian points out that 





' Tertullian, De Monogamia, § 9. ᾿ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 21} 


it could only be adultery because the woman is already 
married, “in that adultery is a crime incident to the marriage 
state.” The same limitation of the word must be taken to give 
the meaning as understood by Tertullian in the first case also. 
If a man send away his wife “for some cause of adultery,” 
he sends her away, according to Tertullian, for “a crime 
incident to the marriage state.” 

Tertullian then is of opinion that a man may put away his 
wife for adultery or post-nuptial sin, but denies that he is 
at liberty to contract another marriage. Like the other early 
writers he is evidently of opinion that a man not only may The hus 

, and ought 
put away his wife for the specified cause, but that he ought to put 
to do so. Addressing Marcion, who permitted no separation, eas 
he asks, “What is a husband, if in thy connexion, to do, adultery. 
supposing his wife to have committed adultery? Shall he 
retain her? But thine own Apostle suffers not ‘the members 
of Christ’ to be ‘joined to a harlot.’”! The inference clearly is 
that for the husband to continue in such a union is not only an 
uncalled-for concession, but an inadmissible sin. Presumably 
when the wife should cease to be ‘a harlot’ the husband might 
receive her who was still, in Tertullian’s view, his wife; and in 
the De Patientia penitence and reconciliation are indicated 
as the rewards of patience.?— On the question of divorce by the Wife may 
woman Tertullian recognises that she can put away her Puawey 
husband, though his references appear to have rather in view 
the secular law, but, as we have seen, there can be no 
remarriage. This appears from the passage upon widows, 
already quoted, “the wife must still continue in peace with 
her departed husband, whom she will now have no power 
to put away; and if she had, not even so might she marry 
again.” 

In the orthodox treatise De Patientia, Tertullian, as has just Penitent 
been noticed, expresses the view held by Hermas and 8. Clement pee Aa 
that a divorced partner may be restored upon penitence. Ex- 
tolling the benefits of patient waiting he exclaims, “ How much 
of benefit it confers upon both! it prevents the one from 





1 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, lib. iv. ὁ. 34. 
2 Thid. De Patientia, § 12. 


jp 


Summary 
of the 
views of 
Tertullian, 


Origen. 


The in- 
stances of 
remarriage 
permitted 
by bishops. 


212 HOLY MATRIMONY 


becoming an adulterer, while the other it amends.”+ This 
passage, if the reading be accepted, is also an important expres- 
sion of Tertullian’s view of the character of the union resulting 
from remarriage after divorce; it is adultery. In some manu- 
scripts, however, the reading alterum ad alterum non factt 
replaces the reading alterwm non adulterum facut; i which case 
the sense would seem to be that patience “restrains the one 
from a second partner, while the other it amends.” 

Tertullian’s opinions may be summed up as follows: He 
understands our Lord to permit the husband to put away for 
adultertwm; he implies in addressing Marcion that the husband 
is bound to put away a wife living in adultery, since he would 
otherwise partake of her sin; he admits that the wife is at 
liberty to put away her husband for the same cause; he under- 
stands by adulterium post-nuptial adultery, “a erime incident 
to the marriage state”; he is positive that there is no remarriage 
possible for either of the separated parties, and he assumes that 
such impossibility of remarriage is recognised without question 
by all Christians alike; and finally he is of opinion that one 
ereat advantage of abstinence from remarriage is that it often 
leads to the penitence and restoration of the offending husband 
or wife, which he evidently desires. 

The next great writer is also identified with the churches of 
the African continent. Origen, probably born at Alexandria in 
185-6 A.D., the son of a Christian father, Leonides, who suffered 
imartyrdom in the tenth year of Severus (202 A.D.), is an instance 
of an early Christian teacher who had never professed another 
faith. He would therefore be well acquainted with the tradi- 
tional feeling of the Christian community. At the same time 
he was the boldest and most independent of thinkers. 

A long passage is quoted above from his commentary on §. 
Matthew xix. He points out that the provisions of the Mosaic 
code which permitted divorce to the Jews were “in the way of 
condescension to the weakness of those for whom they were 
made.” He is disposed to think that this principle of concession 
may perhaps be entertained even in the Christian Church. If so, 
there may be some excuse for certain governors of the Church 





1 Tertullian, De Patientia, § 12. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 2135 


who have gone so far as to permit a person to marry a woman 
in the lifetime of her husband, “thus doing contrary to the 
Scripture,” and “contrary to what was enacted and written 
from the beginning.” In this passage we have the second 
mention in Christian literature of actual instances of remarriage 
after divorce, and this time the remarriages have been with the 
permission of the bishops. The divorced parties thus allowed 
to marry were women; but it is not stated whether they were 
innocent or guilty of the adultery, if adultery had been the 
ground (from the Christian point of view) of the separation, or 
whether they were the repudiators or the repudiated, if the 
ground of divorce had been one admitted by the Roman law, 
but unrecognised by Christianity. But whatever the ground of 
divorce, the remarriages and the episcopal permission of them 
had been facts. They are, however, to be mentioned as facts of 
the most exceptional character, and only to be understood at all 
by the extension to the Christian Church of the principle of ἡ 
concessions to hard hearts. The rule of the marriage of 
Christians is “that which was enacted and written from the 
beginning.” Remarriage following divorce is “contrary to the 
Scripture.” He is commenting on the very passage of Scripture 
on which so much stress has been laid (S. Matt. xix. 9), but he 
derives from it no support of these remarriages. If they are to 
be justified, it must be on the principle of concession to men’s 
hardness of heart. Yet our Lord had not adopted the Mosaic 
code. Adultery is the ground of divorce, a crime which under 
the Mosaic code was punished by stoning. “But,” Origen 
sums up, “as the woman is an adulteress though she seem to Remarriage 
be married to a husband, if her former husband yet lve; so ἀπε ay 
also the man who seems to marry one put away does not so adultery. 
much marry, according to our Saviour’s decision, as commit 
adultery.” 

Origen’s authority, therefore, is distinctly against remarriage, 
notwithstanding the hint thrown out about the possibility of 
concession to hard hearts. At the same time his statement is. 
undeniable testimony to the fact that certain divorced women 
had remarried, and that certain bishops had permitted such 
remarriage. It is possible, however, and indeed, as regards that 


πορνεία 
means 
adultery. 


S. Matthew 
xix. 9. 


Jewish and 
Christian 
discipline 
contrasted. 


S. Cyprian. 


Ὁ Vek HOLY MATRIMONY 


age, exceedingly probable that the divorced wives spoken of 
were the wives of non-Christian husbands who had put them 
away. If this was done before or at the baptism of the wives, 
the divorce would be regarded by the Church as affording no 
bar to remarriage, as we shall see in the next chapter. The 
marriage so severed would never have been Christian marriage 
at all. 

To Origen πορνεία meant post-nuptial sin, whatever else it 
might mean. His argument against the view that λόγος 
πορνείας was the equivalent of “some ground of uncleanness,” 
the phrase of the Mosaic law, is that that phrase did not cover 
the sin of adultery, the punishment of which was otherwise 
provided. ‘The phrases therefore could not be equivalent. In 
other words πορνεία included adultery. There was however a 
question whether πορνεία must not be taken to include a good 
deal besides adultery, as murder, witchcraft and theft. 

The bearing of this passage on the verse to which it is a 
commentary must not be overlooked. Origen is willing to find 
any reasonable justification for the bishops who permitted 
remarriage. One such justification may be found in the 
principle of concession to hard hearts. Never is any reference 
made to the verse before him as having been understood by any 
to sanction such remarriage. His reading of the verse omits 
the clause and shall marry another, and is in no. way concerned 
with remarriage. He apparently knows of no other reading. 

In the passage quoted from the eleventh of the Homilies on 
Leviticus, Origen contrasts the rigour of the old law with the 
leniency of the Christian discipline, which no longer punished 
adultery by death or corporal punishment, but simply subjected 
the offender to a course of penance. Offenders should see to it 
that they fulfilled this penance; but too often, he says, “they 
delight to wallow in that mire in which they have been 
entangled.” 

The next writer to be noticed is the great African Father 
S. Cyprian, who was probably converted when already an 
elderly man (“cui nondum forsitan crederetur supergressus 
vetustatis aetatem”— Pontius, Vit. ad Don. c. 2), but who 
became Bishop of Carthage in 248 a.D., not very long after his 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 215 


conversion. His great experience of the conventional morality 
of the non-Christian population must have made him entirely 
sensible of the marked difference of the Christian. tone, which, 
however, he simply accepts without comment. In the Zestemonia 
adversus Judacos he quotes as a canon for the Church the rule 
of S. Paul that “the wife do not separate from her husband, 
but and if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled 
to her husband, and that the husband do not send away the 
wife.”! All this of course is opposed to the non-Christian 
practice of the day. There is no special allusion to adultery, 
but it is evidently understood that there are grounds on which 
the wife may legitimately require separation of life. 

Before leaving 8. Cyprian it is worth while to notice that to S.Cyprian’s 
S. Augustine’s mind the argument from S. Cyprian’s silence in eater 
the matter of remarriage after divorce was a very strong one. pba A 
He could only have been silent, thinks 5S. Augustine, because 
there was no cause to speak. In the treatise De Fide et 
Operibus, 8. Augustine remarks, including his own times, that 
“the manners of wicked Christians, very bad as ere now they 

have been, seem to have been free from this particular mischief, 
of men marrying other men’s wives, or women other women’s © 
husbands”; and then continues: “ Now our reason for thinking 
that these things were not noticeable in the conduct of bad 
Christians from the first is that the blessed Cyprian in his 
Epistle concerning the Lapsed, in mournful reproof mentioning 
many things, which he says had deservedly kindled Gop’s 
wrath, until He suffered His Church to be scourged with an 
intolerable persecution, makes no mention at all of these 
things. Yet this other circumstance, which, as he remarks, 
comes under the same head of immorality, he doth not at all 
pass in silence; viz., their joining in the bond of matrimony 
with unbelievers.” 

The treatise De Disciplina et Bono Pudicitrae, which used to “ De-Disci- 
be assigned to 8. Cyprian, may next be noticed. It cites the Ser 
teaching of our Lord as allowing a wife to be put away only Pudicitiae.” 
for adultery. 





1 §. Cyprian, Zestimonia adversus Judacos, lib. 111, ὁ. 90, 
2 §, Augustine, De Fide et Operibus, § 35. 


The 
Apostolical 
Canons, 


No re- 
marriage 
after 
divorce. 


Council of 
Eliberis. 


Women 
who have 
causelessly 
left their 
husbands 
for others 
refused 
communion 
even at 
death. 


216 HOLY MATRIMONY 


We may now pass on to the Apostolic Canons, a body of 
regulations of a date indeterminate, but certainly prior to 
Constantine. They have been commonly taken as of high 
authority in the Christian Church, and probably represent the 
voice of the third century. The 47th of these canons runs: 
“Tf any layman having put away his own wife, shall take 
another, or (if any one take) a woman divorced by another 
man, let him be excommunicated.” This claims to be an 
authoritative utterance, and it visits all remarriage after 
divorce with excommunication. There is no exception, or 
hint of exception. 

The citations of this period are concluded by certain canons 
of the Council of Eliberis or Elvira in Granada, which Hefele 
assions to 305 A.D. or 506 AD. Mr. Ffoulkes says of this 
Council that, “as Hosius of Corduba is placed second of the 
nineteen bishops attending it, its date cannot well have been 
earlier than 513 or later than 324.” If the later date, which 
is the date assigned to it in its own acts (Era CCCLXII= A.D. 324), 
be accepted, the Council would properly fall in our next period. 


It has, however, no sign of recognition by secular authority, 


and, whatever its date, is in this respect on the same footing as 
all the Christian witnesses of the period preceding Constantine’s 
conversion. Some of its canons are very important as regards 
the remarriage of converts, and will be cited later under that 
head. On the subject of the divorce and remarriage of 
persons united in Christian matrimony there are also some 
very clear pronouncements. The 8th canon strikes at the 
laxity of repudiation without cause: “ Women who without 
previous cause have left their husbands and united themselves 
to others, are not to receive communion even at death.” This 
canon deals with the whole fabric of divorce at will, whether 
the will of one party only, or mutual consent. The punish- 
ment for the offence of remarriage after such a divorce is the 
gravest known to the Christian Church: it is exclusion from 
the communion of the Church on earth without recognition 
even of death-bed repentance. The reconciliation of such 
penitents is left to Gop and to another world. 

The 9th canon is as follows: “A woman baptized, who has 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 217 


forsaken an adulterous husband also baptized, and is marrying a woman 
. . ᾿ . who di- 
another, must be forbidden to marry him; and if she so marry, °°" μδε 


she must not receive the communion till after the husband husband for 
whom she has left be dead, unless extremity of sickness compel See ες, 
the indulgence.” The Council makes it quite clear at starting 384!" 
that this canon refers only to those united in Christian 
marriage, both the husband who is forsaken, and the wife who 
forsakes, being baptized persons. The ground of desertion is 
the adultery of the husband; a ground, as we have seen, 
carrying little or no weight with it in the view of the Roman 
law or of the popular sentiment, but apparently a ground 
admitted by the Council as justifying the desertion of a 
Christian husband by a Christian wife. It does not however for 
a moment justify the wife’s remarriage to another man, and 
such remarriage at once carries with it the sentence of excom- 
munication. If while she is living in this unhallowed union 
her real husband die, then, notwithstanding the fault of its 
commencement, the existing union may be recognized, because 
its character is now changed. While -her first husband was 
alive she was his wife, and could be no one else’s; when he is 
dead she is as free as ever she was to contract a marriage, and 
if she elect as a Christian woman to continue the union which 
has already the sanction of the secular law it becomes Christian 
marriage, and she is again admissible to communion, her 
penitence for past sin being presupposed. If, however, while 
the union has still the adulterous character, she seem likely to 
die, then, notwithstanding the presumption that she les dying 
in the home and with the surroundings of her adultery, she 
may be admitted to communion, it being always understood in 
eases of death-bed admissions to communion that the sin is 
first both repented of and repudiated. If she were not pre- 
pared to repudiate the connexion there would of course be no 
question of communion even at death. 

The 64th Canon deals with the case of a woman who-is in A woman 
adultery because her partner is another woman’s husband— es 
“Tf any woman shall have continued in adultery with the 2nether 

womans 


husband of another until she come to die, it was resolved that husband. 
neither at the last should communion be given her. If, how- 


218 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ever, she have left him, she may receive communion after ten 
years, if the lawful penance has been performed.” The strict- 
ness in this case is very remarkable when seen in the light of 
the laxity of the Eastern churches at the close of the same 
century in the matter of the connection of a married man with 
an unmarried woman. 

Obligation The 65th Canon is noteworthy as shewing a very strong 

τῆ μασι sense of the obligation to put away in the case of an adulterous 

ous wife. wife. “If the wife of any clericus shall have committed 
adultery, and her husband shall have known that she was 
committing adultery, and shall not have immediately cast her 
forth, he is not to recelve communion even at the last: lest 
from those who ought to be examples of right conversation 
there should seem to proceed the authoritative recognitions of 
crimes.” It is startling to find here the infliction of the extreme 
penalty of excommunication without relaxation at the hour of 
death. To retain a woman who is sinning with another man is 
a crime; and for a clergyman to afford in his own person an 
example of this crime, which laymen might not be slow to 
follow, is a crime of the most heinous character. The canon 
must be understood to apply to the period of actual adultery 
when the indulgence of the husband would amount to actual 
connivance, and be responsible for the confusio prolis ; 1t cannot 
be assumed from the canons that a penitent wife might not be 
received even by a clericus. 

The obligation to put away an adulterous wife is not less 
forcibly expressed in the 70th Canon—“If a wife have com- 
mitted adultery with the cognizance of the husband, it was 
resolved that communion is not to be accorded (to him) even at 
the last; but if he have left her (subsequently) he may receive 
the communion after ten years.” Even a layman was to be 
visited with the extreme penalty of the Church if he failed to 
put away an adulterous wife when he knew of her adultery; 
but if he put her away subsequently the vigour of the Canon 
might in his case be relaxed, and ten years of exclusion from 
communion would suffice as a penance. 

By the 78th Canon a baptized man who, being married, com- 
mitted adultery with a Jewess, or with a heathen woman, was 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 219 


to be excluded from communion. It was evidently not supposed But not ᾿ 
that there was any obligation on the part of the wife to put satan 
away the adulterous husband; but the adulterous character of ἔθου 


his sin was clearly recognised, a recognition which was not to though his 
be met with outside the Christian Church. e renrn 

The Council of Eliberis has thus some important decisions, Pe!ty- 
which cast in an authoritative and responsible form the opinions 
which were doubtless commonly entertained in the Church of 
the third century. Not only may a husband put away his wife 
for adultery, but he is held bound to do so under the most 
stringent penalties if the adultery continue after he has know- 
ledge of it. It appears to be recognised that a wife may put 
away her husband for adultery, but there is no sense of any 
obligation on her part to put him away, even although she be 
aware of the continuance of the sin. The crime which justifies 
putting away is distinctly post-nuptial adultery. A woman 
who puts away her husband is, however, directly forbidden to 
marry again. 

We are now in a position to review the evidence of the 
whole period from the Ascension of our Lord to the conversion 
of Constantine. The results of the enquiry are not a little 
important. 

1, It is agreed that a husband may put away his wife for pusbana 
awopveta. Hermas, Tertullian, and the Council of Eliberis go ee 
farther, and require the husband to put away the wife if the πορνεία. 
adultery continue. 8. Clement of Alexandria says that Holy 
Scripture only permits the putting away of a wife “on the 
ground of πορνεία. δ. Justin Martyr, who makes no objection 
to the putting away of an adulterous husband, must be under- 
stood to admit the putting away of an adulterous wife. Origen 
says: “Our Saviour in no wise permitting dissolution of 
marriage for any other fault, but only for πορνεία found in 
the wife.’ On the other hand, no Christian writer of the 
first three centuries anywhere states or implies that a man 
may not put away his wife for πορνεία. 

2. Some authorities insist that a man is bound to put away 
a wife who continues in her adultery. Hermas says: “If he 
know that his wife have sinned, and hath not done penance, 


Husband 
bound to 
put away 
for con- 
tinuing 
adultery. 


Wife may 
put away 
for 
adultery. 


220 HOLY MATRIMONY 


but abideth in her fornication, and he still liveth with her as a 
husband, he will be guilty of her crime, and partaker of her 
adultery.” Tertullian, addressing Marcion, says: “What is a 
husband in thy connexion to do, supposing his wife to have 
committed adultery? Shall he retain her? But thine own 
Apostle suffers not ‘the members of Christ’ to be ‘joined to a 
harlot. Christ therefore proves to be an assertor of the 
righteousness of divorce.’ The Council of Eliberis punishes 
a husband who retains an adulterous wife, knowing her to 
continue in her adultery, by exclusion from communion for life. 
Not even in the article of death may a husband thus guilty of 
connivance at adultery be restored. If, however, he be a layman, 
and leave his wife at some time subsequent to his connivance 
at her sin, ten years’ penance will suffice. From the moral 
standpoint, the peculiar enormity of retaining a wife known 
to continue her adulterous relations presumably les in the 
confusio prolis. No authority requires the woman to put away 
the man in lke case. From the point of view of the secular 
law, the obligation to put away an adulterous wife brings the 
Christian practice into harmony with the lex Julia de adulteriis 
coercendis. No Christian writer of the first three centuries is 
found to deny that it is the duty of the husband to put away 
an adulterous wife if she continue in her adultery. 

3. While the Roman Law and public opinion in the Roman 
Empire did not recognize any sufficient justification of divorce 


in the unfaithfulness of the husband, the Christian feeling 


characterised such unfaithfulness as adultery, and recognised 
the right of the wife to put away her husband for such 
adultery. 5. Justin Martyr narrates without blame the history 
of the lady who put away her husband for practising and 
endeavouring to involve her in sins παρὰ τὸν τῆς φύσεως νόμον, 
a ground for putting away which, it may be noticed in passing, 
is recognised by the Canon Law of Europe generally, and in 
particular by the law of England, here derived from ecclesi- 
astical sources. Tertullian understands that a woman has the 
same right to put away as a man, though he may be referring 
only to the secular law. Speaking of widows in the De 
Monogania, he says, “ She has heard no sentence of repudiation 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 22h 


from him, therefore she is not departed from him: she hath 
written him no bill of divorce, therefore she is still with him.” 
In the De Patientria he speaks of “marriage being severed on 
that ground for which it is permissible, whether to the husband 
or to the wife.” The Council of Eliberis punishes wives “ who, 
without previous cause, have left their husbands, and united 
themselves to others.” “A woman baptized, who has forsaken 
an adulterous husband also baptized,’ is not censured, but 
simply forbidden to marry again. No writer of the period 
denies that a woman may put away her husband for adultery. . 

4. No writer, however, will be found to contend that a Wife not 
woman is bound to put away her husband for adultery, as μεν ὁ Ἂν 
it is insisted that the husband is bound to put away the wife. theta 
The cases are obviously different. There is here no confusio na 
prolis. The wife who continues with an adulterous husband is 
not “guilty of” his “crime and partaker of” his “adultery.” 

The lady of 5. Justin Martyr’s narrative is an instance of 
the very rare cases in which the wife has to fear participation 
in crime. She felt herself bound to put away her husband 
accordingly. But in ordinary cases of the adultery of the 
husband, there is no early Christian teaching to the effect 
that the wife is under any obligation to put away the husband. 

5. The passages which have been quoted throw light on the πορνεία 
meaning attached to the word πορνεία in the early centuries of κάμει. 
Christianity. Hermas says the husband is bound to put away 
the wife if she continue in her fornication (ἐπιμένῃ τῇ πορνείᾳ 
αὐτῆ ς), Where the continuance precludes the idea of pre-nuptial 
sin, and then goes on to use μοιχεία aS Synonymous with 
mopveta. The view of S. Clement of Alexandria that a 
penitent wife may be restored indicates that the sin was 
adultery. Pre-nuptial sin would already have been a thing 
past and gone at the time of its discovery. To Tertullian the 
cause which justifies putting away is adulteriwm, which he 
defines as “a crime incident to the marriage state.” Origen 
says that πορνεία must not be taken to be identical with 
“some ground of uncleanness,” because this phrase did not 
include adultery. Ἰ]ορνεία then does include adultery. The 
writer of the De Disciplina et Bono Pudicitiae, whether 


πορνεία 
never pre- 
nuptial 
unchastity. 


But some- 
times 
figurative 
adultery. 


No 
remarriage 
after 
divorce. 


LS) 


22 HOLY MATRIMONY 


S. Cyprian or not, says that our Lord gave answer that a wife 
was not to be dismissed, except for adultery (non nisi ob 
adulterium). The Council of Eliberis requires the husband to 
put away when the wife has been guilty of adultery (moechata 
fuerit). It was, then, generally understood in the first three 
centuries that the one ground which justified putting away was 
the ground of post-nuptial adultery. | 

6. No early writer can be cited as understanding that the 
adinitted ground of putting away is pre-nuptial unchastity ; 
nor is any instance of actual dismissal for that cause 
recorded. | 

7. There is, however, a certain tendency in this period, as 
afterwards, to extend the meaning of πορνεία from the obvious 
signification of lteral unchastity to various forms of figurative 
adultery. Thus Hermas says: “Not only is it adultery in 
those who join in polluting their own flesh, but he too who 
maketh an image committeth adultery.” Origen says, “It may 
be asked, whether hereby he forbids putting away a wife, if she 
have been taken not in πορνεία, but in witchcraft, or in killing, 
in the absence of her husband, the child born to them, or in 
any sort of murder? Again, if she be caught in peculation, 
and in spoiling her husband’s house, but not πορνεύουσα ?” 

8. We come now to the point of most vital importance. 
When a wife or a husband has been put away, is a second 
marriage to be permitted to either or both of the parties? It is 
most significant that the testimony of the first three centuries 
affords no single instance of a writer who approves remarriage 
after divorce in any case during the lifetime of the separated 
partner, while there are repeated and most decided assertions 
of the principle that such marriages are unlawful. On the 
other hand Tertullian and Origen both mention instances of 
Christians who had availed themselves of the facilities afforded 
by the secular law to contract new marriages, and Origen says 
that the persons to whom he refers were permitted to marry 
by “certain governors of the Church.” The various cases of 
divorce present such different features that they need to be 
considered in this connexion separately. We will take them 
in the following order. Is remarriage after divorce permitted 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 225 


in the case (1) of the guilty wife, (2) of the guilty husband, (3) 
of the innocent wife, (4) of the innocent husband ? 

The remarriage of the guilty wife is abundantly condemned. The guiity 
Hermas says, “It is commanded to you both to abide single, mle 
both husband and wife.” 8. Justin Martyr quotes, without 
excepting the guilty wife, as some would do, the words of our 
Lord: “He that marrieth one put away by another man com- 
mitteth adultery.” He continues: “They who under some 
human law contract bigamy are sinners in the account of our 
teacher.” Athenagoras admits no second marriages, 8. Clement 
of Alexandria writes: “For ‘if one put away his wife, he 
μοιχᾶται αὐτήν ;᾽ 1.6., compelleth her to commit adultery.” He 
makes no exception. Again he mentions the permitted cause 
of putting away and the unlawfulness of remarriage in the 
same breath—‘* ‘Thou shalt not put away a wife except on the 
ground of πορνεία᾽ ; and it (the Scripture) holds it adultery to 
marry during the lifetime of either of the separated parties.” 
Tertullian says, “ Neither can the divorced woman lawfully 
marry.” Origen says the remarriage of the women of whom 
he speaks was “contrary to the Scripture,” while asking if the 
ease could be covered by the principle of concession to hard 
hearts. He concludes: “ But as the woman is an adulteress, 
though she seem to be married to a husband, if her former 
husband yet live; so also the man who seems to marry one put 
away does not so much marry, according to our Saviour’s 
decision, as commit adultery.” 

The 47th Apostolical Canon decrees that a layman who 
marries a woman “divorced by another man” is to be excom- 
municated. No writer asserts that it is lawful for a guilty wife 
to marry again during the lifetime of her husband. 

9. The case of the husband guilty of adultery whom the tye guity 
wife has put away is not so often mentioned as that of the husband. 
cuilty wife put away by the husband. ‘Tertullian, who admits 
the wife’s right to put away, admits no remarriage during 
the lifetime of the separated partner. The Council of Elberis 
decrees that if the woman remarry, “she must not receive the 
communion till after the husband whom she has left be dead.” 

He is then still her husband. 


The inno- 
cent wife. 


(a) Repudi- 
ated. 


(0) Repudi- . 


ating, 


pest HOLY MATRIMONY 


10. The case of the innocent wife is twofold. She may either 
be a wife put away by her husband causelessly, or a wife who 
has put away her husband for adultery. 

(a) As regards a wife put away causelessly, some of the 
passages already quoted in the case of the guilty wife are here 
equally applicable. 8S. Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, 5S. Clement 
of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen are thus found to reject 
the remarriage of the wife causelessly divorced. It does not 
appear whether the women, of whom Origen says that they had 
remarried with the permission of the governors of the Church, 
were wives put away by their husbands with or without cause, 
or whether they had put away their husbands. 

In the absence of definite pronouncements of Church 
authority individual prelates might be disposed to be very 
indulgent to women divorced without cause. It is, however, 
likely enough that Origen’s instances were either cases coming 
under the privilegium Paulinum, which suffers remarriage after 
divorce upon conversion, or were mistakenly treated as being 
such cases. If so, these instances would have no bearing on 
the question of the indissolubility of Christan marriage, with 
which alone we are concerned in the present chapter. 

(Ὁ) The other case is that of the innocent wife who has left 
her husband by reason of his adultery. 5S. Justin Martyr has 
no record of the remarriage of the lady whose case has been 
alluded to. Tertullian says of a widow, “ Her departed husband, 
whom she will now have no power to put away; and if she had, 
not even so might she marry again.” It is of the wife who 
leaves her husband on sufficient grounds that Tertullian says, 
“Christ... has both permitted putting away in that He has 
not altogether forbidden it, and has confirmed [the bond of] 
marriage in that He has . . . forbidden it to be severed.” 

The 9th Canon of Eliberis rules that “a woman baptized, 
who has forsaken an adulterous husband also baptized, and is 
marrying another, must be forbidden to marry him, and if she 
so marry, she must not receive the communion till after the 
husband whom she has left be dead, unless extremity of sickness 
compel the indulgence.” 

11. The next case is that of the innocent husband who has 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 228 


put away an adulterous wife. In such a case Hermas says: The 
“it is commanded to you both to abide single, both husband ee 
and wife.” Athenagoras admits no remarriage. Ὁ. Clement of 
Alexandria, after reciting the admitted ground of putting away, 
says that “it is counted adultery to contract another marriage 

in the lifetime of either of the separated parties.” Tertullian 
says the remarriage of a divorced wife “admits not the title of 
adultery save on account of her matrimony, in that adultery is 

a crime incident to the marriage state.” The husband is there- 
fore still her husband. The 47th Apostolical Canon rules: 
“If any layman having put away his own wife shall take 
another . . . let him be excommunicated.” 

No writer of the first three centuries is found to advocate or 
admit the remarriage of the innocent husband. 

Reviewing all the cases of remarriage after divorce, we find Christian 
that the writers and canons of the period which ends with ἐπα ἐστήξος 
Constantine’s conversion do not approve of such remarriage in 
any case, and that there is considerable expression of disapproval 
in every case. When it is remembered that the whole tenor of 
the Roman Law and of Roman custom was against such strict- 
ness in any case, and that the adoption of such strictness in 
any case involved the conscious maintenance of a separatist 
cause, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the 
testimony before us. If the voice of the earhest Church is to 
be heard, Christian marriage is altogether indissoluble. 

12. Another question with regard to which Christian feeling Restoration 

was hardly less out of harmony with the prevailing tone was of Penitent 
the question of the restoration of the penitent adulteress, permissible, 
Hermas says: “If her husband receive her not, he sinneth, 
and bringeth a great sin upon himself. It is his duty to receive 
the woman who hath done penance.” 8. Clement of Alexandria, 
condemning one who harboured an adulterous woman, says: 
“For, if he would not receive her, she must return to her 
husband.” Tertullian extols patience as leading to penitence 
and reconciliation. No writer denies that a penitent wife may 
be received again, but Hermas says that it is not to occur 
“repeatedly; for to the servants of Gop there is but one solemn 
penance.” 


Q 


and even 
obligatory. 


Penitent 
husband 
may be 

received, 


Impenitent 
adulteress 
not to be 
received. 


No similar 
rule as 
regards the 
husband. 


S.Matthew 
xix. 


226 | HOLY MATRIMONY 


13. Hermas, as has been seen, distinctly asserts that the 
husband is bound in duty to receive the adulteress who returns 
to him a penitent. 

14, 15. From the statements regarding the wife, it follows 
that the penitent husband may be received by the wife, and 
ought to be so received. 

16. In no case, however, ought the husband to receive again 
an adulterous wife who has not forsaken her adultery. This 
follows from what has already been referred to in (2). 

17. On the other hand, as no obligation rests upon the wife 
to put away an adulterous husband (4), there appears to be no 
bar to her receiving her husband again, if she will, even though 
he continue in his sin. 

18, There is no instance during this period of any writer 
referring to 8. Matthew xix. 9, as to an authority authorizing 
remarriage after divorce, or as to a difficult passage requiring to 
be explained away. 8. Clement of Alexandria, in a somewhat 
free citation of the passage, explains μοιχᾶται as meaning 
“causes her to commit adultery.” He thus renders out of 
place the clause, “and shall marry another,’ which his citation 
does not contain. Origen, commenting at length upon the 
passage, has the reading: “ Whosoever shall put away his wife, 
saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit 
adultery.” He knows nothing of the clause, “and shall marry 
another.” In commenting on the passage he paraphrases it as 
follows: “But as the woman is an adulteress, though she seem 
to be married to a husband, if her former husband yet live; so 
also the man who seems to marry one put away does not so 
much marry, according to our Saviour’s decision, as commit 
adultery.” 

Athenagoras refers to the verse without mentioning the 
exception for πορνεία, and employs his reference for the 
express purpose of proving that any repetition of marriage is 
adulterous. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 227 


B. From Constantine to Justinian (314 A.D—527 A.D.). 


Councin or Artzs (314 Α.}.). 
Canon 10,1 


De his qui conjuges suas in adulterio deprehendunt, et iidem sunt 
adolescentes fideles, et prohibentur nubere, placuit ut inquantum 
possit consilium eis detur, ne viventibus uxoribus suis, licet adulteris, 
alias accipiant. 

Counci, oF ARLES (1). 


Canon 24? (so-called). 


Placuit ut quantum potest inhibeatur viro, ne dimissa uxore 
vivente liceat, ut aliam ducat super eam. Quicumque autem hoc 
fecerit alienus erit a catholica communione. 


Counoin or Anoyra (314 Α.}.). 
Canon 20.8 
"Hav τινος γυνὴ μοιχευθῇ. ἢ 5 ἐν ἑπτὰ € δοκεῖ αὐτὸ 
iy 1) μ x UV 7)» 1) μοιχευσῇῃ TUS, εν E€ETTOA ETEOL OOKEL αὐτὸν 


a / A \ \ \ Ν / 
του τελείου TUXELV, KATA τους βαθμοὺς τους προσαγοντας. 


Councit ΟΡ Neo-Cazsarea (314 A.p.-325 a.D.). 
Canon 8.4 
Τυνή τινος μοιχευθεῖσα λαϊκοῦ ὄντος, ἐὰν ἐλεγχθῃ φανερῶς, 6 τοι- 
a See ΄ 3 A 5) ΄ TDs \ \ τ \ 
OUTOS εἰς ὑπερησίαν ἐλθεῖν ov δύναται. "Hay δὲ καὶ μετὰ τὴν χειρο- 
τονίαν μοιχευθῃ, ὀφείλει ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν. "Hav δέ συ), οὐ δύναται 


ἔχεσθαι τῆς ἐγχειρισθείσης αὐτῳ ὑπηρεσίας. 


LACTANTIUS. 
Epitome, ο. ἸΧΥ]. (alias ὁ. viil.).° 

Teneatur ergo in omnibus vitae officiis, teneatur in matrimonio. 
Non enim satis est, si alieno toro, aut lupanari abstineas. Qui habet 
conjugem nihil quaerat extrinsecus sed contentus ea sola, casti et 
inviolati cubilis sacramenta custodiat. Adulter enim Deo est perinde 
atque incestus, qui abjecto jugo vel in liberam vel in servam 
peregrina voluptate luxuriat. Sed sicut foemina castitatis vinculis 
obligata est, ne alium concupiscat, ita vir eadem lege teneatur 
quoniam Deus virum et uxorem unius corporis compage solidavit. 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 472. 2 Tbid. tom. ii. p. 474. 3 Ibid. tom. ii. p. 520. 
4 Ibid. tom. ii. p. 542. 5 Migne’s Ed. tom, i. p. 1080. 


On 


228 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Ideo praecepit, non dimitti uxorem, nisi crimine adulterii relictam, 
ut nunquam conjugalis foederis vinculum, nisi quod perfidia ruperit, 
resolvatur. Illud quoque ad consummandam pudicitiam jungitur ut 
non modo peccatum absit, verum etiam cogitatio. 


Divinarum Institutionum adversus Gentes, lib. vi. cap. 23.1 


Haec sunt quae ad continentiam praecipiuntur a Deo. Sed tamen, 
ne quis divina praecepta circumscribere se putet posse, adduntur illa, 
ut omnis calumnia et occasio fraudis removeatur; adulterum esse, 
qui a marito dimissam duxerit, et eum, qui praeter crimen adulteril 
uxorem dimiserit ut alteram ducat. Dissociari enim corpus et dis- 
trahi Deus noluit. 


S. Basin. 
Ethica (Moralia).? 
Regula 73. 
Cap. I. 


Ὅτι οὐ δεῖ avd πὸ ὃς ἢ c ἱπὸ ἀνδρὸ (feo θ i 
ρα ἀπὸ γυναικὸς ἢ γυναῖκα ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς χωρίζεσθαι, εἰ 


/ ἌΣ ΣΌΝ ΄ὔ my ΣΕ ΚΘ. \ θ , > ΄ 8 
μη τις αν ἐπι πορνξείρ, α ῳ 1) ELS TYV εοσέβειαν KW UITAL, 


(δ. ΠῚ: 


e 3 x” “ 5 7, Ἂς ¢ ἴω" A » ” 
Oru OUK ἔξεστι τα ἀπολύσαντι, TYV εασνυτου γυναικα γάμειν ἄλλην 


ΕΙΣ Ἂς » » Ψ \ 5 Ἂν id 7 lal 
οὔτε τὴν ἀπολελυμένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς ἑτέρῳ γαμεῖσθαι. 


Kedar. β΄. 

ΜΑΊΤΊΘΑΙΟΣ, λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, 
2 ἣν + \ / \ / ” ay δι we 4 5 te 
εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ, καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται" Kal ὁ ἀπολελυμένην 
γαμήσας μοιχᾶται. 

Hexaemeron, vii. ὃ 5.4 
Oi ἄνδρες ἀγαπᾶτε τὰς γυναῖκας, κἂν ὑπερόριοι ἀλλήλοις πρὸς 
, / » ε ων ἴα Ν ε \ ων > / 

κοινωνίαν γάμου συνέλθητε. “O τῆς φύσεως δεσμὸς, ὁ διὰ τῆς εὐλογίας 
vyos, ἕνωσις ἔστω τῶν διεστώτων... . κἂν τραχὺς η), κἂν ἄγριος τὸ 

7.5) ῬΟΧΌΣ ΣΙ; YP 
0 ε > / ra οἷ ε ie bs la / 
ἦθος ὁ σύνοικος ἀνάγκη φέρειν τὴν ὁμόζυγα, Kal ἐκ μηδεμιᾶς προφάσεως 
καταδέχεσθαι τὴν ἕνωσιν διασπύν. Τ]λήκτης ; ᾿Αλλ’ ἀνήρ. Ἰ]άροινος ; 
"AAN ἡνωμένος κατὰ τὴν φύσιν. Tpaxyds καὶ δυσάρεστος; ᾿Αλλὰ 


/ ” Ν Ν A Ν 7 
μέλος ἤδη σὸν, καὶ μελῶν TO τιμιώτατον. 


1 Migne’s Kd. tom. i. p. 720. 2 Ibid. tom. ili. p. 849. 
3 The passages quoted to support this are : 

S. Matt-v.3l) 32+ 7S.s Luke xive26 sus. Matt, xix29 25) CoraviteLowrls 
4 Migne’s Ed, tom, i. p. 160. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 229 


Canon 9 (Epistle 188). 


Ἢ δὲ τοῦ κυρίου ἀπόφασις, κατὰ μὲν τὴν τῆς ἐννοίας ἀκολουθίαν, ἐξ 
oo \ > / \ aN δ ig \ “ ~ Φ a Md 
ἴσου καὶ ἀνδράσι καὶ γυναιξὶν ἁρμόζει, περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἐξεῖναι γάμου 
Ἂ iz Ἂν 7 / «ς Ν 7 ‘J a ” 
ἐξίστασθαι, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας. Ἢ δὲ συνήθεια οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει" 
3 5 τὰ \ aA a \ Sah 3 ΄, a \ 
GAN ἐπὶ μὲν TOV γυναικῶν πολλὴν εὐρίσκομεν ἀκριβολογίαν, τοῦ μὲν 
᾿] / , ay te (4 / & 14 a la Vie ὃ fa) 
Αποστόλου λέγοντος" Ὅτι 6 κολλώμενος τῇ πόρνῃ, EV σῶμά ἐστι" τοῦ 
Sarre , o , 
δὲ “Ἱερεμίου: Ὅτι ἐὰν γένηται γυνὴ ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ, οὐκ ἐπιστρέψει πρὸς 
Ἂν x ΤΟΝ 3. τὰν] 3 \ / / as / ε + 
τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς, ἀλλὰ μιαινομένη μιανθήσεται" καὶ πάλιν" Ὃ ἔχων 
μοιχαλίδα ἄφρων καὶ ἀσεβής. Ἢ δὲ συνήθεια καὶ μοιχεύοντας ἄνδρας 
καὶ ἐν πορνείαις ὄντας κατέχεσθαι ὑπὸ γυναικῶν προστάσσει. “Ὥστε ἡ 
aay. F a ὃ \ β an 5 io > δύ a fe 
τῳ ἀφειμένῳ ἀνδρὶ συνοικοῦσα οὐκ οἶδα εἰ δύναται μοιχαλὶς χρηματίζειν. 
TO γὰρ ἔγκλημα ἐνταῦθα τῆς ἀπολυσάσης τὸν ἄνδρα ἀπτέται, κατὰ 
ποίαν αἰτίαν ἀπέστη τοῦ γάμου. Hire καὶ τυπτομένη, μὴ φέρουσα τὰς 
Ν ig / 3 “ nN 5) nN an ἴω ΕΣ 
πληγὰς, ὑπομένειν ἐχρῆν μᾶλλον ἢ διαζευχθῆναι τοῦ συνοικοῦντος᾽ εἴτε 
\ 5 Ν 77 tes \ vil © a ¢ ε ee > / 
τὴν εἰς τὰ χρήματα ζημίαν μὴ φέρουσα, οὐδὲ αὕτη ἡ πρόφασις ἀξιό- 
Ale. x \ Ν 5 7 SPN 2g > yA an > a 
Aoyos. Hi δὲ διὰ τὸ ἐν πορνείᾳ αὐτὸν ζῆν, οὐκ ἔχομεν τοῦτο ἐν τῇ 
4 πον, ὁ) “ἀρ: \ 7 > Ἂς x > ᾽ὔ > by 
συνηθείᾳ τῇ ἐκκλησιαστικῃ TO παρατήρημα" ἀλλὰ Kal ἀπίστου ἀνδρὸς 
7] 5 tA a > Ν 7 ὮΝ \ Ian A 
χωρίζεσθαι ov προσετάχθη γυνὴ, ἀλλὰ παραμένειν, διὰ TO ἄδῆλον τῆς 
5 7, Ἂς 3 ᾿ 5 Ἂς ” 7 a - 
ἐκ βάσεως. Τί γὰρ οἶδας, γύναι, εἰ τὸν ἄνδρα σώσεις; “Ὥστε ἡ κατα- 
λιποῦσα, μοιχαλὶς, εἰ ἐπ’ ἄλλον ἦλθεν ἄνδρα. “O δὲ καταλειφθεὶς 
συγγνωστός ἐστι, καὶ ἡ συνοικοῦσα τῷ τοιούτῳ οὐ κατακρίνεται. Εἰ 
Me Ce SN 5 \ la Ν seg) TAA ἦλθ Ν ΞΟ Ν Ν 
μέντοι ὁ ἀνὴρ, ἀποστὰς τῆς γυναικὸς, ἐπ’ ἄλλην ἦλθε, καὶ αὐτὸς μοιχὸς, 
A fal = bs / 
διότι ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι" Kal ἡ συνοικοῦσα αὐτῷ μοιχαλὶς, διότι 


5 7] ” . Ἂς ε \ 7 
ἀλλότριον ἄνδρα πρὸς ἑαυτὴν μετέστησεν. 


Canon 21 (Epist. 199).? 


nN Ly -~ , 5 
Ki ἀνὴρ γυναικὶ συνοικῶν, ἐπειδὰν, μὴ ἀρκεσθεὶς TH γάμῳ, εἰς πορ- 
ἴων Ψ 
νείαν ἐκπέσῃ πόρνον κρίνομεν τὸν τοιοῦτον᾽ καὶ πλεῖον αὐτὸν παρα- 
ΕῚ 7 “ ἴων fd 
τεΐίνομεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτιμίοις" οὐ μέντοι ἔχομεν κανόνα, τῷ τῆς μοιχείας 
ΞΕ Ὁ ὁ pe) , ΤῊΝ hy © ΄ ΄ cane / ΄ Ἂ 
αὐτὸν ὑπαγαγεῖν ἐγκλήματι, ἐὰν εἰς ἐλευθέραν γάμου ἡ ἁμαρτία γένηται 
Ν᾿, > 
διότι ἡ μοιχαλὶς μὲν, Μιαινομένη, φησὶ, μιανθήσεται, καὶ οὐκ ava- 
ve x Ν ΕΣ OA \ € , 7ὔ ” Ν 
στρέψει πρὸς τὸν ἄνδρα αὐτῆς" Kal, O κατέχων μοιχαλίδα ἄφρων καὶ 
ἀσεβής" ὁ μέντοι πορνεύσας οὐκ ἀποκλεισθήσεται τῆς πρὸς γυναῖκα 
ἴω a Fi 5 I Ἂς 
ἑαυτοῦ συνοικήσεως. “Ὥστε ἡ μὲν γυνὴ ἀπὸ πορνείας ἐπανιόντα τὸν 
la A lal » «ε “A 
ἄνδρα αὐτῆς παραδέξεται, 6 δὲ ἀνὴρ τὴν μιανθεῖσαν TOV οἴκων ἑαυτοῦ 
c \ Y a 
ἀποπέμψει. καὶ τούτων δὲ ὁ λόγος οὐ Pgdios* ἡ δὲ συνήθεια οὕτω 


κεκράτηκε. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 672. 2 Ibid. tom. iv. p. 721. 


290 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canon 31 (Epist. 199)." 
Ἢ, ἀναχωρήσαντος τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, Kat ἀφανοῦς ὄντος, πρὸ τοῦ πεισθῆναι 


“ 7ὔ 5 an Cae ed 7 ~ 
περὶ TOU θανάτου αὐτου, ετέρῳ συνοικησᾶασα μοιχάαται. 


Canon 36 (Hpist. 199).3 
ἴων nN » “ = 4 “ 
Στρατιώτιδες, ai τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἀφανῶν ὄντων γαμηθεῖσαι, τᾷ αὕτᾳ 
® 5) “ ee) Ν 
ὑπόκεινται λόγῳ, ᾧπερ ἂν καὶ αἱ διὰ τὴν ἀποδημίαν τῶν ἀνδρῶν μὴ 
ἀναμείνασαι τὴν ἐπάνοδον: πλὴν ἔχει τινὰ συγγνώμην τὸ πρᾶγμα 
> lal X X nN \ / Ss Ν 5 Va 
ἐνταῦθα, διὰ τὸ μᾶλλον πρὸς θάνατον εἶναι τὴν ὑπόνοιαν. 


Canon 39 (Hpist. 199).° 


ε nw nw na 7] 5 hd a “4 
H τῷ poryw συζῶσα μοιχαλίς ἐστι πάντα TOV χρόνον. 


Canon 46 (Hptst. 199).4 
Ἢ δὲ τῷ καταλειφθέντι πρὸς καιρὸν παρὰ τῆς γυναικὸς κατὰ ἄγνοιαν 
ff » > lal εἶ Ν. > ἴω \ > daa. \ , 
γημαμένη, εἶτα ἀφεθεῖσα, διὰ τὸ ἐπανελθεῖν πρὸς αὐτὸν τὴν προτέραν, 
> \ 
ἐπόρνευσε μὲν, ev ἀγνοίᾳ δέ, Τάμου οὖν οὐκ εἰρχθήσεται. Κάλλιον de, 
ἐὰν μείνῃ οὕτως. 
Canon 48 (Hpist. 199).° 
Ἢ δὲ ἐγκαταλειφθεῖσα παρὰ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς κατὰ τὴν ἐμὴν γνώμην μένειν 
ὀφείλει. Εἰ γὰρ 6 Κύριος εἶπεν ὅτι Edy τις καταλίπῃ γυναῖκα ἐκτὸς 
aA nN ἴω Ἂς 
λόγου πορνείας ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχᾶσθαι': ἐκ τοῦ μοιχαλίδα αὐτὴν 
ὀνομάσαι ἀπέκλεισεν αὐτὴν τῆς πρὸς ἕτερον κοινωνίας. [Τ]ῶς γὰρ 
δύναται ὃ μὲν ἀνὴρ ὑπεύθυνος εἶναι, ὡς μοιχείας αὔτιος, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ 
μ 1p ς εἰναι, WS μοιχείας » γυνὴ 
Bie es S ε a Ν “ Σ΄. 14 Ν \ Ἂς μή + 
ἀνέγλητος εἶναι, ἡ μοιχαλὶς παρὰ τοῦ Κυρίου διὰ τὴν πρὸς ἕτερον ἄνδρα 
κοινωνίαν προσαγορευθεῖσα. 


Canon 58 (Epist. 217).° 
ξ 7 5 »" δ 5 rd ” “ ε 7 = > 
O μοιχεύσας ev ve (15) ἔτεσιν ἀκοινώνητος ἔσται TOV ἁγιασμάτων" ἐν 
τέσσαρσι μὲν προσκλαίων ἔτεσιν, ἐν πέντε δὲ ἀκροώμενος" ἐν τέσσαρσιν 
ὑποπίπτων, ἐν δυσὶ συνεστὼς ἄνευ κοινωνίας. 


Canon 77 (Epist. 21). 
c ‘6 7ὔ Ν 7 > ted ἴω lal >" 
O μέντοι καταλιμπάνων τὴν νομίμως αὐτῷ συναφθεῖσαν γυναῖκα καὶ 
, an a an 
ἑτέραν συναγόμενος κατὰ τὴν του Κυρίου ἀπόφασιν τῳ τῆς μοιχείας 
, 
ὑπόκειται κρίματι, ΜΚΚεκανόνισται δὲ παρὰ τῶν πατέρων ἡμῶν τοὺς 
τοιούτους ἐνιαυτὸν προσκλαίειν, διετίαν ἐπακροᾶσθαι, τριετίαν ὑπο- 
A \ A a an 
πίπτειν. τῷ δὲ ἑβδόμῳ συνίστασθαι τοῖς πιστοῖς: καὶ οὕτω τῆς 
προσφορᾶς καταξιοῦσθαι ἐὰν μετὰ δακρύων μετανοήσωσιν. 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 728. 2 Ibid. tom. iv. p. 728. 
3 Ibid. tom. iv. p. 728. 4 lbid. tom,  ἰν pai 2e. 
5 Ibid. tom. iv. p. 732. § Ibid. tom. iv. p. 797. 


7 Migne’s Ed. tom, iv. pp. 804-5, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Pou 


De Virginitate, 39. (Περι τῆς ἐν παρθενίᾳ ἀληθοῦς apOopias.)} 
5 (4 / Ὁ “ de \ Tay 7 Ν lay 
Ki δὲ ὁ γάμος οὗτος τοῖς μάρτυσι καὶ ταῖς προόδοις Kal πᾶσι περι- 
\ > δ) 44 \ ἧς ε 9 \ 9 lay eG > € "4 
φανὴς, οὐκ ἀπέθανε δὲ, φημὶ, ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς" μοιχεύεται οὖν ἡ τοιαύτη 
ζῶντος τοῦ ἀνδρὸς διὰ βίου μοιχευομένη" μᾶλλον δὲ δι’ ἡδονῆς μὲν 
3 ig > ΄, Ψ Ἂν \ ς o Ν ” 7 
ἀπόλαυσιν ἀκολάσεως πορνεύουσα, διὰ δὲ τὸ ὧν τὸν ἄνδρα παρανόμως 
μοιχεύουσα. 
S. ΒΡΙΡΗΛΧΝΙΙΞ. 
Panarion, lix. cap. "4... 
” \ ig Ge 
Βξεστι δὲ τῷ Aaw Ov ἀσθένειαν διαβαστάξεσθαι, καὶ μὴ δυνηθέντας 
ΠΡΨΒΟΝΝ Be aS a la 
ἐπὶ TH πρώτῃ γαμετῇ στῆναι, δευτέρᾳ μετὰ θάνατον τῆς πρώτης συν- 
αφθῆναι. Kat 6 μὲν μίαν ἐσχηκὼς ἐν ἐπαίνῳ μείξ «αἱ 7 ὰ 
ναι, μὲν μίαν ἐσχηκὼς ἐν ἐπαίνῳ μείζονι καὶ τιμῃ παρὰ 
a » , > , € an \ \ a ae 795 an 
πᾶσιν ἐκκλησιαζομένοις ἐνυπάρχει" ὁ δὲ μὴ δυνηθεὶς TH μιᾷ ἀρκεσθῆναι 
τελευτησάσῃ ἕνεκεν τινος προφάσεως, πορνείας ἢ μοιχείας, ἢ κακῆς 
5 las » 
αἰτίας χωρισμοῦ γενομένου, συναφθέντα δευτέρᾳ γυναικὶ, ἢ γυνὴ δευτέρῳ 
5 \ 5 la A ἴων ἴω 
ἀνδρὶ, οὐκ αἰτιᾶται ὁ θεῖος λόγος, οὐδὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Εκκλησίας καὶ τῆς 
“A 3 ¢ 
ζωῆς ἀποκηρύττει, ἀλλὰ διαβαστάζει διὰ τὸ ἀσθενές: οὐχ ἵνα δύο 
ἴω 5 “ cy nN in a“ 
γυναῖκας ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ σχῇ ἔτι περιούσης τῆς μιᾶς, GAN ἀπὸ μιᾶς 
5 “Ὁ. A “A 
ἀποσχεθεὶς, δευτέρᾳ, εἰ τύχοιεν, νόμῳ συναφθῆναι. ’HXee? τοῦτον ὁ 
a an 
ἅγιος λόγος καὶ ἡ ἁγία Θεοῦ ’ExxAyoiat μάλιστα εἰ τυγχάνει ὃ TOL 


ovtos τὰ ἄλλα εὐλαβὴς, καὶ κατὰ νόμον Θεοῦ πολιτευόμενος. 


S. Gregory ΝΑΖΙΑΝΖΕΝ. 
Oratio, xxxvii, §5 (in 5. Matt. xix. 1-12).8 
> 

Τὸ ἐρώτημα ὃ ἠρώτησας, τοῦτο σωφροσύνην τιμᾷν μοι δοκεῖ, καὶ 
5 7 5 lal FA τι 7 Ν a ὦ ~ "ἢ 
ἀπόκρισιν ἀπαιτεῖν φιλάνθρωπον: σωφροσύνην περὶ ἣν ὁρῶ τοὺς 

\ “ re ss Ἂς 16 3 “nN ΕΙΣ Ν > 7] 
πολλοὺς κακῶς διακειμένους, καὶ τὸν νόμον αὐτῶν ἄνισον, καὶ ἀνώμαλον. 
Ti δήποτε γὰρ. τὸ μὲν θῆλυ ἐκόλασαν, τὸ δὲ ἄῤῥεν ἐπέτρεψαν; καὶ 

] ὙΠ, ΜΕ) ἢ PP : 

“ an N 
γυνὴ μὲν κακῶς βουλευσαμένη περὶ κοίτην ἀνδρὸς μοιχᾶται, καὶ πικρὰ 
ἐντεῦθεν τὰ τῶν νόμων ἐπιτίμια" ἀνὴρ δὲ καταπορνεύων γυναικὸς, 
5 40 Ε O 2 δέ va % 0 7ὔ 9 Ὃ Σ ἴων \ ‘ . 
ἀνεύθυνος ; ὑ δέχομαι ταύτην τὴν νομοθεσίαν, οὐκ ἐπαινῶ τὴν 'συν- 
/ " > ε “Ὁ AN nm Ἂς an ε 
ήθειαν. “Avdpes ἦσαν οἱ νομοθετοῦντες, διὰ τοῦτο κατὰ γυναικῶν ἡ 

΄, ἘΠῚ \ A ΄ Cre 5.15 ΄, ὃ Ὰ , \ ΄, ὮΝ 
νομοθεσία" ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῖς πατράσιν ὑπ ἐξουσίαν δεδώκασι τὰ τέκνα, τὸ 
᾿ > ¢ 
be ἀσθενέστερον, ἀθεράπευτον ἔιασαν. Θεὸς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως. 


a 


ines > \ ΄ \ > A 5:1 τοῖο , δὲ ἃ A 
Os οὖν σὺ σωφροσύνην μὲν ἀπαιτεῖς, οὐκ ἀντεισφέρεις δὲ ; πῶς, ὃ 
“- ἴω nN 5" fi » ἴω > \ 
μὴ δίδως, αἰτεῖς ; πῶς, ὁμότιμον σῶμα ὧν, ἀνίσως νομοθετεῖς ; Hi δὲ 
r ¢ nw 7, «ε 
τὰ χείρω σκοπεῖς" ἥμαρτεν ἡ γυνὴ, τοῦτο καὶ ὁ ᾿Αδάμ' ἀμφοτέρους ὁ 
>| \ > / 
ὄφις ἠπάτησεν. Οὐ τὸ μὲν ἀσθενέστερον εὑρέθη, τὸ δὲ ἰσχυρότερον. 
1 Migne’s Ed, tom. i. p. 748. 2 Tbid. tom. i. pp. 1024-5, 
3 Tbid. tom. ii. p. 289. 


Zee, HOLY MATRIMONY 


᾿Αλλὰ τὰ βελτίω SHG: TEARS piles ee tees τοῖς πάθεσιν. 
Ὑπὲρ ΠΡ σὰρξ ἐ οὐ ἄτην τοῦτο καὶ ὑπὲρ γυναικός. Ὕ περ ἀνδρὸς 
ἀπέθανε; καὶ ἡ γυνὴ τῷ θανάτῳ σώξεται. "EK σπέρματος Δαβὶδ 
ὀνομάζεται" τιμᾶσθαι ἴσως οἴει τὸν ἄνδρα; ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκ Παρθένου 
ΠΝ ΟΝ, τοῦτο καὶ up ey ἼἜσονται μὲν οὖν οἱ δύο, φησὶν, 
εἰς σάρκα Bias, καὶ ἡ μία σὰρξ ἐχέτω τὸ ὁμότιμον. Παῦλος δὲ καὶ τῷ 
ὑποδείγματι τὴν σωφροσύνην νομοθετεῖ, [Ιῶς, καὶ τίνα τρόπον; Τὸ 
μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν᾽" ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν 
᾿κκκλησίαν. Καλὸν τῇ γυναικὶ ΤΡΊΤΟΝ αἰδεῖσθαι διὰ τοῦ ΠΣ 
καλὸν καὶ τῷ ee τὴν ’ExkAnoiav μὴ RAG διὰ Ὁ» γυναικός, “H 
(ele φησὶν, iva Ponta: τὸν avdpa’ καὶ Χριστὸν γάρ. ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ ὁ 
ἀνὴρ, ἵνα ἘΠ ΤΠ τὴν γυναῖκα" καὶ γὰρ ΣΡ Ὁ τὴν ᾿Βκκλησίαν. 
Μᾶλλον δ᾽ ἔτι καὶ ἐπρῦσς ἐ ΛΟ ον με τῷ ῥητῷ. 

“Apedye γάλα καὶ ἔσται Ια τορον ἐξέταζε καὶ XC ἂν εὕροις τι ἐν 
αὐτῷ A OE aa Δοκεῖ μοι yap παραιτεῖσθαι τὴν Sy ἐνταῦθα 
ὃ ἌΣ Εἰ ΤΗΝ γὰρ δύο Χριστοὶ, δύο καὶ SS δύο καὶ MESS, εἰ 
δὲ εἷς Χριστὸς, μία κεφαλὴ τῆς ᾿Εκκλησίας, καὶ pe ἘΠΕ ἡ δευτέρα δὲ 
ἀποπτυέσθω. . Td δεύτερον δὲ ἂν κωλύσῃ, τοῦ pleat τίς MOPS Té 
ae νόμος, τὸ δεύτερον συγχώρησις, τὸ τρίτον παρανομίας. ὋὉ δὲ 
he τοῦτο, voLogOns....010S..0008 πολλὲ "ἔχων she κακίας- τὰ παρα- 
ἀξ πάτα. Ὃ μὲν νόμος κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν τὸ ἀποστάσιον δίδωσι" 
Χριστὸς δὲ οὐ κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν: ἀλλὰ συγχωρεῖ μὲν μόνον χωρίζεσθαι 
τῆς πόρνης, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα φιλοσοφεῖν κελεύει. Kat τὴν πόρνην, 
ὅτι νοθεύει τὸ γένος" τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα καρτερῶμεν καὶ φιλοσοφῶμεν᾽ 
μᾶλλον δὲ καρτερεῖτε καὶ φιλοσοφεῖτε, ὅσοι τὸν τοῦ γάμου ζυγὸν 
ἐδέξασθε. "Hav ἐπιγραφὰς ἴδῃς ἢ ὑπογραφὰς, ἀποκόσμησον" κἂν 
γλῶσσαν προπετῆ, σωφρόνισον: ἂν γέλωτα πορνικὸν, κατηφῆ ποίησον" 
ἐὰν δαπάνην, ἢ ποτὸν ἄμετρον, σύστειλον: ἐὰν προόδους ἀκαίρους, 
πέδησον" ἐὰν ὀφθαλμὸν μετέωρον, κόλασον. Μὴ τέμῃς δὲ προπετῶς, 
μὴ χωρίσῃς. Αδηλον, τί κινδυνεύει, τὸ τέμνον, ἢ τὸ τεμνόμενον. “H 
πηγὴ, φησὶ, τοῦ ὕδατος ἔστω σοι ἰδία, καὶ μηδεὶς ἀλλότριος μετασχέτω 
σοι" καὶ, Il@Aos σῶν χαρίτων, καὶ ἔλαφος σῆς φιλίας ὁμιλείτω σοι. 
Σὺ τοίνυν μὴ γίνου ποταμὸς ἀλλότριος, μηδὲ ἄλλαις ἀρέσκειν σπούδαζε 
μᾶλλον, ἢ τῇ on γυναικί, Hi δὲ ἀλλαχοῦ φέρῃ, καὶ τῷ σῷ μέλει 
νομοθετεῖς τὴν ἀσέλγειαν. Οὕτω μὲν 6 Σωτήρ. 

Epistle 144, (To Olympius.)! 

"Kya δὲ ἥδιστα av γνώμην ἔδωκα TH vig Οὐηριανῷ πολλὰ τῶν ἐν 
μέσῳ παραδραμεῖν, ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ κυρῶσαι τὸ ἀποστάσιον͵ ὃ τοῖς ἡμετέροις 
ἀπαρέσκει πάντως νόμοις, κἂν Ob Ρωμαίων ἑτέρως κρίνουσι. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. pp. 245, 248. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE You 


CoNSsTITUTIONES APosToLicag, lib. i. ὁ. 1.1 
He δέ τις νεωτέρα ὀλίγον χρόνον σὺν τᾷ ἀνδρὶ ποιήσασα, καὶ ἀπο- 
βαλοῦσα αὐτὸν διὰ τελευτῆς, ἢ δι ἀφορμὴ ἐτέ i μείνῃ ἐφ᾽ 
ἧς, ἢ Ov ἀφορμῆς τινος ἑτέρας, καὶ μείνῃ ἐφ 
ἑαυτῆς, δῶρον ἔχουσα χηρείας, μακαρία εὑρεθήσεται. 
Ἢ τοιαύτη μαρτύ λαβοῦ θή ἐλέὸς € ὶ ὰ 
) μαρτύριον λαβοῦσα τιμηθήσεται, κλέος ἔχουσα καὶ παρ 


5) θ ΄ SN la \ ΝΥ 2 > A Ν 52 " 
αν PwTols ἐπι VS Kal Tapa Dew εν ουράᾶάνουις TOV αιωνιον ἐπαινον. 


S. Asterius, ΒΙΒΗΟΡ or AMASEA. 
Homily V. on S. Matthew aiax.? 


ε x > / » ΄ ¢ 
Oi δὲ ἀλλήλοις συναφθέντες, οὐκ ἔτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ σὰρξ μία: ὥστε 
x » ¢ 5 
ὃ συνέζευξεν ὁ Θεὸς, ἄνθρωπος μὴ χωριζέτω. 
Live θ \ “A las / / =e 7 \ “ ¢ 7 
ἐχθη μὲν ταῦτα τοῖς Φαρισαίοις τότε: ἀκούσατε δὲ νῦν, οἱ τούτων 
/ λ ᾿ \ Ἂς la e € Ve > / / ; εξ \ 
κάπηλοι, καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας, ὡς ἱμάτια, εὐκόλως μετενδυόμενοι" OL τὰς 
παστάδας πολλάκις καὶ ῥᾳδίως πηγνύντες, ὡς πανηγύρεως ἐργαστήρια" 
ς καὶ ῥᾳδίως πηγνύντες, ὡς πανηγύρεως ἐργαστὴρ 
«ε \ > las A 
οἱ τὰς εὐπορίας γαμοῦντες, Kal τὰς γυναῖκας ἐμπορευόμενοι" οἱ μικρὸν 
Ve fa 
παροξυνόμενοι, καὶ εὐθὺς τὸ βιβλίον τῆς διαιρέσεως γράφοντες" οἵ 
πολλὰς χήρας ἐν TH ᾧην ἔ λιμπάνοντες. Πείσθητε, ὅτι γάμο 
χήρας ἐν τῴ (nv ἔτι καταλιμπάνοντες. ITE, γάμος 
7 
θανάτῳ μόνῳ καὶ μοιχείᾳ διακόπτεται. 
Οὐ Ἂς 4 5 Ν lal « / 5 ee e “A 5 θ Ν 7 
V yap, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῶν ἑταιρίδων, ὀλίγος ἡμερῶν ἀριθμὸς πειράζει 
= 7 Ν ΄ὔ ΄ ε Ν “ 2 \ Neo tes nN ΄ 
τὴν συμβίωσιν, καὶ μόνην θηρεύει ἡδονὴν, οὕτως ἐστὶ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν νόμῳ 
\ Se Ie 5 Ν an 5 / > ” 7 
καὶ θεσμῷ τελουμένων: ἀλλὰ πᾶν τοὐναντίον, ὦ ἄνθρωπε, μία τις 
Ψ / \ / \ A ¢€ A Ν A ΤῊΝ 0 
ἐνωσις γίνεται καὶ σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς, ὡς καὶ τὸ ἦθος Ta ἡθει συν- 
ανακιρνᾶσθαι, καὶ τὴν σάρκα τῇ σαρκὶ τρόπον τινὰ συνδεδέσθαι. πῶς 
ἐν > ἊΝ , lal Cad \ \ > ΄ 3 la 
οὖν ἀπαθῶς διατέμνῃ;; πῶς εὐκόλως καὶ χωρὶς ἀλγηδόνος ἀναχωρεῖς, 
, Ν \ > eon aed ε lal ε ΄ Ν 3 \ \ 
βίου κοινωνὸν λαβὼν, οὐκ ὀλίγων ἡμερῶν ὑπηρέτιν, τὴν ἀδελφὴν καὶ 
γυναῖκα; 
Homily V. on S. Matthew αἴ. 
A δέ / Ele f- \ tf / “ 
ν δέ που μοιχείας αἰτίαν προβάληται, καὶ τοιαύτην παράσχοι TOV 
χωρισμοῦ τὴν ἀπολογίαν, εὐθὺς τὴν συνηγορίαν μεταθήσομαι τοῦ ἀδικη- 
fe A ἴω 
θέντος, καὶ τὸν λόγον κατὰ τῆς μοιχαλίδος παρασκευάσας, ἀγαθὸς 
τ 5 a “ 
συνασπιστὴς ἀντὶ πολεμίου TH ἀνδρὶ παραστήσομαι: ἐπαινῶν τὸν 
7 Ν >’ / ς / << Ν a x \ 5 / 
φυγόντα τὴν ἐπίβουλον, τὸν διακόψαντα τὸν δεσμὸν, ᾧ πρὸς τὴν ἀσπίδα 
Ἃ \ A ὃ δέδ ΠῚ / \ δί(ὃ Ἂς / ~ 
ἢ τὴν ἔχιδναν προσεδέδετο. ‘TovTm yap δίδωσι τὴν συγγνώμην πρῶτος 
ὁ τοῦ παντὸς ποιητὴς, ὡς καὶ δικαίως ἀλγοῦντι, καὶ προσηκόντως τῆς 
᾿ Ν᾽ 
οἰκίας ἀπελαύνοντι καὶ τῆς ἑστίας τὴν νόσον. Ἰ'άμος γὰρ τούτων χάριν 


al 7 Ἃ ΄ Ν ofe a 55. Ν 
τῶν δύο συνίσταται, διαθέσεως καὶ παιδοποιΐας:" ὧν οὐδέτερον μετὰ 


1 Mansi, tom. i. p. 373. 2 Migne’s Ed. Ὁ. 228 (Patr. Grae. tom, xl.). 
3 Migne’s Ed. p. 237. 


234 HOLY MATRIMONY 


/ , εξ 2,4 \ / 3 ” εν " an 
μοιχείας σώξται. “H μὲν yap διάθεσις οὐκ ἔστιν, πρὸς ἄλλον τῆς 
᾽ ΄, > 7, if Vee Ν Ses ΄ 
εὐνοίας ἀποκλινάσης" παιδοποιΐας δὲ τὸ καλὸν ἀνήρηται, συγκεχυμένων 
~ ἐφ ) \ Ν \ > A ἐᾷ μὰν ἀμ 4 ” > 
tov τέκνων. ᾿Αλλὰ τὰ μὲν εἰς τοῦτο φέροντα TO ἁμάρτημα εἴρηται EV 

” ε ΄ὕ ΄ ) / , \ ΄, ΄΄ 
ἄλλῃ ὑποθέσει συμμέτρως. ᾿Αμφότερα δέ μοι τὰ μέρη σωφροσύνην 
ἀσκησάτω, τὸν ἀῤῥαγῆ τῶν γάμων σύνδεσμον. Ὅπου yap αὕτη τιμᾶται, 
> / Ἂν Ν + ων» Ν / δ] / gf aS 8 
ἐπάναγκες εἶναι καὶ εἰρήνην Kat πόθον" ovdnpias πανδήμου Kat νόθου 
9 / Ἂς Ἂν 5 ΄ I ig \ ei / Ας 
ἐπιθυμίας τὴν ψυχὴν ἐπιθηγούσης, ἐμβαλούσης δὲ τὴν νόμιμον καὶ 
δικαίαν στοργήν. 
a A ΄ ε , > πὰ \ ΄, \ a 
Οὗτος τῆς σωφροσύνης ὁ νόμος οὐ ταῖς γυναιξὶ μόνον παρὰ Θεοῦ 
WA > Ν \ A 3 / ε Ν A a / 7 
ὥρισται, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἀνδράσιν. Οἱ δὲ τοῖς τοῦ βίου τούτου vopo- 
θέταις προσέχοντες ἀνεύθυνον καταλείπουσι τῆς πορνείας τοῖς ἀνδράσι 
\ > / a / 5 Ν Ν / “ lan nN 
τὴν ἐξουσίαν, βαρεῖς μέν εἰσι κριταὶ καὶ διδάσκαλοι τῆς TOV γυναικῶν 
/ eu κῶν of ΄ ε ΄ ΄ 
σεμνότητος" οἱ δ᾽ ἐν πολλοῖς ἀναίδην ἐπιμαίνοντες σώμασιν. 
Εἰ δέ τι καὶ τοῖς νόμοις Ῥωμαίων τινὲς προσέχοντες ἀνεύθυνον τὴν 
» εν / Ἂς “nN / > “να € 
πορνείαν εἶναι νομίζουσι, δεινὴν πλανῶνται πλάνην, οὐκ εἰδότες, ὡς 


ἄλλως Θεὸς νομοθετεῖ, καὶ ἑτέρως ἄνθρωποι δογματίζουσιν. 


S. ΤΙΜΟΤΗΥ or ALEXANDRIA. 
Interrogatio 15.4 
᾿Ῥρώτησις. “Edy τινος γυνὴ πνευματιᾷ, ὥστε καὶ σίδηρα φορεῖν, 6 
δὲ ἀνὴρ λέγει, ὅτι Οὐ δύναμαι ἐγκρατεύεσθαι, καὶ θέλει λαβεῖν ἄλλην" 
ὀφείλει λαβεῖν ἑτέραν ἢ οὔ; 
ΔΑΝ Ψ, , A vr if 2 - y \ z 
πόκρισις. Μοιχεία μεσολαβεῖ τῷ πράγματι" καὶ περὶ τούτου τι 


> fh OU 12 , 
ἀποκρίνεσθαι OUK EX, 1 εφευρίσκω. 


S. ΟΗΒΥΒΟΒΤΟΜ. 
De Virginitate, § 28.? 
Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι πρότερον φορτικὸν εἶναι καὶ ἐπαχθῆ τὸν γάμον 
3 ee ” 9 of ” al / 5 if ΡῚ \ 7 
ἐνόμισαν, ἄλλ᾽ ὅτε ἤκουσαν τοῦ Κυρίου εἰς ταύτην αὐτοὺς κατακλείοντος 
τὴν ἀνάγκην, εἰς ἣν καὶ τοὺς Κορινθίους ὁ Παῦλος τότε. Td γὰρ, Ὅς 
5 Ν lal ε nN lal 
ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν 
A θ ᾿ \ τς Ὅ Che aK an Ay ΄ > 3 , er 
μοιχᾶσθαι" Kat τὸ, ἀνὴρ TOV ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει, ῥήμασι 
Ἂν Caay: I δὲ " naps δ sg Ki δέ 5 / 
μὲν ἑτέροις, γνώμῃ δὲ εἴρηται TH αὐτῃ. ἰ δέ τις ἀκριβέστερον κατα- 
μάθοι τὸ τοῦ IlavAov, μᾶλλον ἐπιτείνει τὴν τυραννίδα, καὶ φορτικωτέραν 
ὧδ (2 \ Ν > ‘ 
ἐργάζεται τὴν δουλείαν. Ὃ μὲν γὰρ Κύριος οὐκ ἀφίησι κύριον εἶναι 
τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦ τῆς οἰκίας ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτήν" 6 δὲ ἸΠαῦλος καὶ τὴν τοῦ 


> hd a an A 
οἰκείου σώματος ἐξουσίαν παραιρειται, πᾶσαν αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀρχὴν TH 





1 Migne’s Ed. Patr. Grae. tom. xxxiil. p. 1305. * Ibid. tom. i. p. 562. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 23D 


\ Ἂς Nai? 7 a (4 ὔ ἔπ a ΄ 

γυναικὶ παραδιδοὺς, καὶ ἀργυρωνήτου μᾶλλον ὑποτάξας οἰκέτου. Τούτῳ 

Ν Ἂν ἐξ λλά \ ἮΝ τ EN θ / las 4 ὃ ᾿᾿ 
μὲν γὰρ ἔξεστι πολλάκις καὶ παντελοῦς ἐλευθερίας τυχεῖν, εἴ γε δυνὴ 
θείη ποτὲ εὐπορήσας ἀργυρίου καταθεῖναι τὴν τιμὴν τῷ δεσπότῃ" ὁ δὲ 
ἀνὴρ, κἂν τὴν ἁπάντων ἀργαλεωτέραν ἔχῃ γυναῖκα, στέργειν ἀναγκάζεται 
τὴν δουλείαν, καὶ λύσιν οὐδεμίαν οὐδὲ διέξοδον ταύτης δύναται τῆς 
δεσποτείας εὑρεῖν. 

De Virginitate, § 40.1 
7 3 +N \ ε bb 5 \ > ξ \ \ Xx / 

Τί οὖν, ἐὰν μὲν ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐπιεικὴς ἢ, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ μοχθηρὰ, λοίδορος, 
de \ ἃς Ν “ “ 5 “ / ee: 
λάλος, πολυτελὴς, τὸ κοινὸν τοῦτο πασῶν αὐτῶν νόσημα, ἑτέρων 
πλειόνων γέμουσα κακῶν, πῶς οἴσει τὴν καθημερινὴν ταύτην ἀηδιαν 
Σ A ε F. x lay \ 3 / my 7 \ bh 7 
ἐκεῖνος ὁ δείλαιος, τὸν τῦφον, τὴν ἀναισχυντίαν; ‘Tt dat, ἂν τουναντίον 
ΘΝ ἊἌ ὯΝ A ey Noe Ὁ 3 aA δὲ fa Ni . SS > aX 
αὐτὴ μὲν ἢ κοσμία καὶ ἥσυχος, ἐκεῖνος δὲ θρασὺς, ὑπεροπτικὸς, ὀργίλος, 
πολὺν μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν χρημάτων, πολὺν δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς δυναστείας ὄγκον 
περιβεβλημένος, καὶ τὴν ἐλευθέραν ὡς δούλην ἔχῃ, καὶ τῶν θεραπαινίδων 
μηδὲν ἄμεινον πρὸς αὐτὴν διακέηται, πῶς οἴσει τὴν τοσαύτην ἀνάγκην 
Ν / Fs ΠῚ ὃ \ BI “ SNS > id Ν ὃ Ν ΄ 
καὶ βίαν; Té dat, ἂν συνεχῶς αὐτὴν ἀποστρέφηται, καὶ διαπαντὸς μένῃ 
τοῦτο ποιῶν; Καρτέρει, φησὶν, πᾶσαν ταύτην τὴν δουλείαν" ὅταν γὰρ 
ἀποθάνῃ, τότε ἐλευθέρα ἔσῃ μόνον, ζώντος δὲ δυᾶν θάτερον ἀνάγκη, ἢ 
παιδαγωγεῖν αὐτὸν μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς σπουδῆς καὶ βελτίω ποιεῖν, ἢ, εἰ 
τοῦτο ἀδύνατον, φέρειν γενναῖΐως τὸν ἀκήρυκτον πόλεμον καὶ τὴν 
ἄσπονδον μάχην. Καὶ ἀνωτέρω μὲν ἔλεγε: Μὴ ἀποστερεῖτε ἀλλήλους, 

5) / ΠῚ 2 ᾿ς oa vO δὲ θΘ aA aN Naas 
εἰ μή τι ἂν ἐκ συμφώνου" ἐνταῦθα δὲ χωρισθεῖσαν αὐτὴν καὶ ἄκουσαν 
ἐγκρατεύεσθαι κελεύοι λοιπόν" Μενέτω γὰρ, φησὶν, ἄγαμος, ἢ τᾷ avdpt 
καταλλαγήτω. ὋὉρᾷς αὐτὴν ἐν μέσῳ δυοῖν ἀπειλημμένην πολέμων; Ἢ 

\ \ > ἃς lal 5 θ 7ὔ βί \ " a “A cc \ β Xr fA 
yap τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας βίαν χρὴ καρτερεῖν, ἢ τοῦτο μὴ βουλομένην 
κολακεύειν τὸν ὑβριστὴν, καὶ παρέχειν ἑαυτὴν ἐκείνῳ πρὸς ὅπερ ἂν 
βούληται, εἴτε πληγὰς ἐντεῖναι, εἴτε λοιδορίαις πλῦναι, εἴτε οἰκετῶν 
4 7] fa) " 4 “ A Ν Ν (2 x A 
ὑπεροψίᾳ παραδοῦναι, εἴτε ἕτερον TL τοιοῦτον' πολλαὶ yap ὁδοὶ τοῖς 
5 ὃ γ᾿ > oe “ Ρ λά ἦν x ς lay A 
ἀνδράσιν ἐπινενόηνται, ὅταν κολάζειν βούλωνται τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας. 
Εἰ δὲ ταῦτα μὴ φέροι, τὴν ἐγκράτειαν ἀσκεῖν χρὴ τὴν ἄκαρπον" τὴν 
ἄκαρπον δὲ λέγω, ἐπειδὴ μὴ τὴν αὐτῇ προσήκουσαν ὑπόσχεσιν ἔχει" οὐ 

ip δι ἁγιωσύνης ἐπιθυμίαν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν dvd spy, 
γὰρ δι’ ἁγιωσύνης μίαν, jv πρὸς νδρα ὀργὴν 
γίνεται. Μενέτω γὰρ, φησὶν, ἄγαμος, ἢ τῷ ἀνδρὶ καταλλαγήτω. Τί 
οὖν, ἂν μηδέποτε βούληται καταλλαγῆναι; φησίν. "ἔχεις δευτέραν 
λύσιν καὶ ἀπαλλαγήν. Tiva ταύτην; ᾿Ανάμενε τὸν τούτου᾽ θάνατον. 

el Nee, Nad 
ῳ X Coe 7 Ὁ 547 ” Ν \ cad SA SES 
Ὥσπερ yap τῇ παρθένῳ γαμεῖσθαι οὐδέποτε ἔξεστι διὰ τὸ ὧν αὐτῆς ἀεὶ 
> ¢ a / 

Tov νυμφίον καὶ ἀθάνατον εἶναι, οὕτω TH γεγαμημένῃ τότε μόνον 
3 “ € EM, 3 θά Ki Ν ΣΕ Δ ceo N ἧ; Ἄνας Ἂς ΄ 
ἔξεστιν, ὅταν ὁ ἀνὴρ ἀποθάνῃ. Hi γὰρ ἐξῆν καὶ ζῶντος ἀπὸ τούτου 


5) ay 7 / μὴ 
πρὸς ἕτερον, καὶ πάλιν ἀπ’ ἐκείνου πρὸς ἄλλον μεταπηδᾷν, τί γάμων ἔδει 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom, i. p. 562. 


236 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Xr LX A LAA: AN \ 10 4 “ > ὃ A“ / x 
οἰπὸν, ταῖς ἀλλήλων γυναιξὶν ἀδιακρίτως TOV ἀνδρῶν κεχρημένων, καὶ 
πάσαις ἁπλῶς ἀναμεμιγμένων ἁπάντων ; πῶς δὲ οὐκ ἂν καὶ πρὸς τοὺς 
“ ΄ ¢€ / / \ ΄ ” pee i 
συνοικοῦντας διεφθάρη ἡ διάθεσις, τήμερον μὲν τούτου, αὔριον δὲ ἐκείνου, 
καὶ πάλιν ἄλλου τῇ αὐτῶν συζώντων γυναικί; Δικαίως οὖν ὁ Κύριος 


Terk ΄ὔ Se We 
αὐτὸ μοιχείαν ἐκάλεσε. 


Homiliae in Matthaeum xvii. (on ec. v. 31, 52). 
« " rc τῶν / 
‘HppeOn δέ: Os ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, δότω αὐτῃ βιβλίον 
> 4 4 \ δὲ λέ Cn “ Δ Bh > λύ Ν lal > ὩΣ 
ἀποστασίου. γὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, 
XQ / F a 5 Ν lan ἂν α “0 5 ‘x λ 
παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι" καὶ ὃς ἂν ἀπολελυ- 
μένην γάμήσῃ, μοιχᾶται." Οὐ πρότερον ἐπὶ τὰ ἔμπροσθεν πρόεισιν, 
“ \ / ἐκκαθά «αλῷ Ἰδοὺ \ CEN 46/ δεί ν LS ee 
ἕως τὰ πρότερα ἐκκαθάρῃ καλῶς. ov γὰρ καὶ ἕτερον δείκνυσιν ἡμῖν 
΄, a0 , ον mie © τ > ΄ N N 
μοιχείας εἶδος. Tt δὲ τοῦτό ἐστι; Νόμος ἦν κείμενος παλαιὸς, τὸν 
“ \ lal & ¢e “ 5 «ε / 5 f Ν 7 
μισοῦντα τὴν γυναῖκα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἐξ οἱασδήποτε αἰτίας, μὴ κωλύεσθαι 
> τὰ εἶ « if Ε) 5) > ye 5 ἊΝ 5 Ν lay ε A 
ἐκβάλλειν, καὶ ἑτέραν ἀντ᾽ ἐκείνης εἰσάγειν. Οὐ μὴν τοῦτο ἁπλῶς 
ποιεῖν ὁ νόμος ἐκέλευσεν, ἀλλὰ δόντα βιβλίον ἀποστασίου TH γυναικὶ, 
“ Ν 3 / / Ps) 2 aN > “ ov “ XQ a 
ὥστε μὴ εἶναι κυρίαν πάλιν ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ἐπανελθεῖν, ἵνα κἂν τὸ σχῆμα 
μένῃ τοῦ γάμου. Hi γὰρ μὴ τοῦτο ἐπέταξεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξῆν ἐκβάλλειν τε 
> Ν Ν ε / / > \ rd 5 4 Ἂς ec 
αὐτὴν καὶ ἑτέραν λαμβάνειν, εἶτα τὴν προτέραν ἐπανάγειν, πολλὴ ἡ 
σύγχυσις ἔμελλεν εἶναι, συνεχῶς τὰς ἀλλήλων λαμβανόντων ἁπάντων, 
\ 4 Ἂν [φ) Ν > Ῥ 7 > \ > 7 
καὶ μοιχεία TO πρᾶγμα λοιπὸν ἦν σαφής. Διόπερ ov μικρὰν ἐπενόησε 
παραμυθίαν, τὸ βιβλίον τοῦ ἀποστασίου. ’Hyéveto δὲ ταῦτα δι’ ἑτέραν 
ἍΝ, Ὃν Ψ) ΠΣ E 5 ἣν 5 / \ / Ἢ τῷ 
πολλῴ μείζονα κακίαν. ἰ γὰρ ἠνάγκασε καὶ μισουμένην κατέχειν 
ἔνδον, ἔσφαξεν ἂν ὁ μισῶν" τοιοῦτον γὰρ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων τὸ ἔθνος. Οἱ 
Ν / \ / \ 7 3 “a \ ε “ ® 
yap παίδων μὴ φειδόμενοι, καὶ προφήτας ἀναιροῦντες, καὶ WS ὕδωρ οἷμα 
ἐκχέοντες, πολλῷ μᾶλλον γυναικῶν οὐκ ἂν ἐφείσαντο. Διὰ τοῦτο τὸ 
ἔλαττον συνεχώρησε, τὸ μεῖζον ἐκκόπτων. "Hel ὅτι οὐ προηγούμενος 
οὗτος ὁ νόμος ἦν, ἄκουσον αὐτοῦ λέγοντος" “ Mwvons πρὸς τὴν σκληρο- 
καρδίαν ὑμῶν ταῦτα͵ ἔγραψεν," ἵνα μὴ ἔνδον σφάττητε, ἀλλ᾽ ἔξω 
ἐκβάλλητε. ᾿Ι᾿ὑπειδὴ δὲ αὐτὸς τὴν ὀργὴν πᾶσαν ἀνεῖλεν, οὐχὶ τὸν 
φόνον μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ ἀπλῶς θυμοῦσθαι κωλύσας, μετ᾽ εὐκολίας καὶ 
τοῦτον εἰσάγει τὸν νόμον. Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ τῶν προτέρων ἀεὶ ῥημάτων 
3 τς {2 7 a Β] 5 / 5 Ζ 5 \ / 
ἀναμιμνήσκει, ἵνα δείξῃ ὅτι οὐκ ἐναντία ἐκείνοις, ἀλλὰ συμβαίνοντα 
7 > ,7ὔ > Ἂς Ψ 5 7 Ν 7 5 a 
λέγει" ἐπιτείνων αὐτὰ, οὐκ ἀνατρέπων" Kat διορθούμενος, οὐ λύων. 
Ὅρα δὲ αὐτὸν ravtaxov τῷ ἀνδρὶ διαλεγόμενον. ““ὋὉ γὰρ ἀπολύων, 
φησὶ, τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι" καὶ 6 γαμῶν ἀπο- 
rg nN 2) Ξ Ν x BT Coney. \ / ͵7ὔ > “ 
λελυμένην, μοιχᾶται. Ὃ μὲν yap, Kav ἑτέραν μὴ λάβῃ, τούτῳ αὐτῴ 
κατέστησεν ἑαυτὸν ἐγκλήματος ὑπεύθυνον, μοιχαλίδα ποιήσας ἐκείνην" 


ὁ δὲ, TH τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν λαβεῖν, μοιχὸς γέγονε πάλιν. Μὴ γάρ μοι 


1 Field’s Ed. tom, i. p. 245; Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 259. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 25 


τοῦτο εἴπης, ὅτι ἐξέβαλεν ἐκεῖνος: Kal γὰρ ἐκβληθεῖσα μένει τοῦ 
ἐκβάλλοντος οὖσα γυνή. Εἶτα, ἵνα μὴ τὸ ὅλον ἐπὶ τὸν ἐκβάλλοντα 
εὖ» 5 ἊΝ > ἦς Ν A Ἂς \ “A A 
ῥίψας, αὐθαδεστέραν ἐργάσηται τὴν γυναῖκα, Kal τὰς τοῦ δεχομένου 
Ἂν A 3 id ᾽ 3 ΜΕΝ θ 7 oe \ 5 lal oa ΕΝ 5 x Xr / 
μετὰ ταῦτα ἀπέκλεισεν αὐτῃ θύρας, TH μὲν εἰπεῖν, ‘Os ἂν ἀπολελυμένην 
γαμήσῃ, μοιχᾶται," τὴν γυναῖκα καὶ ἄκουσαν σωφρονίζων, καὶ τὴν πρὸς 
πάντας ἀποτειχίζων εἴσοδον αὐτῇ, καὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπων ἀφορμὰς παρέχειν 
΄, ε \ a ¢ aA 3% By ΝΥ > » = 
μικροψυχίας. “H yap μαθοῦσα ὅτι πᾶσα ἀνάγκη, ἢ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς 
κληρωθέντα ἔχειν, ἢ τῆς οἰκίας ἐκπεσοῦσαν ἐκείνης, μηδεμίαν ἑτέραν 
δ ν Noe > / Pa Ν Is 5 X 
ἔχειν καταφυγὴν, Kal ἄκουσα ἠναγκάζετο στέργειν τὸν σύνοικον. Hi δὲ 
μηδὲν αὐτῇ περὶ τούτων διαλέγεται, μὴ θαυμάσῃς" ἀσθενέστερον γὰρ ἡ 
γυνή. Διὰ τοῦτο αὐτὴν ἀφεὶς, ἐν τῇ κατὰ τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἀπειλῇ τὴν 
αὐτὴς διορθοῦται ῥᾳθυμίαν. “ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις παῖδα ἄσωτον ἔχων, 
ἐκεῖνον ἀφεὶς, τοῖς ποιοῦσιν αὐτὸν τοιοῦτον ἐπιπλήττοι, κἀκείνοις ἀπ- 
7 ἫΝ ἡ θ δὲ x / > ὟΝ EK? δὲ Ἂς a 
αγορεύοι μὴ συγγίνεσθαι, μηδὲ πλησιάζειν αὐτῷ. Εἰ δὲ φορτικὸν τοῦτο, 
ἀναμνήσθητί μοι τῶν ἔμπροσθεν εἰρημένων, ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐμακάρισε τοὺς 
> » Ἀπ ον N ὃ Ἂς x oh ” «ε \ “ Ν 
ἀκούοντας, καὶ ὄψει πολὺ δυνατὸν καὶ εὔκολον ὄν. Ὃ γὰρ πρᾶος, καὶ 
> Ν bs τ Ἂς aa 7 \ aN 7 “A 5 (β λὴ A \ 
εἰρηνοποιὸς, καὶ πτωχὸς TH πνεύματι, Kal ἐλεήμων, πῶς ἐκβαλεῖ τὴν 
γυναῖκα; ὁ ἑτέρους καταλλάττων, πῶς αὐτὸς διαστασιάσει πρὸς τὴν 
Ν / \ \ Vg (ea 
ἑαυτοῦ; Ov ταύτῃ δὲ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἑτέρῳ τρόπῳ κοῦφον ἐποίησε 
x / \ \ \ ΄ , , ¢ Shee 
τὸν νόμον. Kat yap καὶ τούτῳ καταλιμπάνει τρόπον ἕνα ἀφέσεως, 
3 \ 6 τὴ λό 7 AMS) 5 Ν (λ 5 ἂν © ἀν ἢ, she 
εἰπὼν, “mapextos λόγου πορνείας" " ἐπεὶ πάλιν εἰς TO αὐτὸ περιΐστατο. 
Hi γὰρ ἐκέλευσε καὶ πολλοῖς συγγινομένην κατέχειν ἔνδον, πάλιν εἰς 
μοιχείαν τὸ πρᾶγμα κατέστρεφεν. Ὁρᾷς πῶς συμβαίνοντα ταῦτα τοῖς 
ἔμπροσθεν; Ὃ γὰρ μὴ βλέπων ἑτέραν γυναῖκα ἀκολάστοις ὀφθαλμοῖς, 
οὐ πορνεύσει" μὴ πορνεύων δὲ, οὐ παρέξει TH ἀνδρὶ ἀφορμὴν ἐκβαλεῖν 
τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα. Διὰ δὴ τοῦτο λοιπὸν μετὰ ἀδείας ἐπισφίγγει, καὶ 
Ν oe 5 77 us 5 ‘ ἊΝ 3 \ “ 4 ” 
τὸν φόβον ἐπιτειχίζει, μέγαν ἐπισείων TH ἀνδρὶ τὸν κίνδυνον, εἴγε 
> , A \ ΄, A » ΄, ε ΄ ε Ἂς A “T 
ἐκβάλοι" τῆς yap μοιχείας τῆς ἐκείνης ὑπεύθυνον ἑαυτὸν ποιεῖ, “Iva 
\ Ν ) , ” \ > Q x \ cs * \ Ν N 
yap μὴ ἀκούσας, ἔξελε τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν, νομίσῃς καὶ περὶ γυναικὸς ταῦτα 
λέγεσθαι, εὐκαίρως ἐπήγαγε τὴν ἐπιδιόρθωσιν ταύτην, Evi τρόπῳ μόνῳ 


συγχωρῶν ἐκβάλλειν αὐτὴν, ἑτέρῳ δὲ οὐδενί, 


Homiliae in S. Matthaewm 62 (on ch, xix.).! 

Εἰ δὲ ἐβούλετο ταύτην μὲν ἀφιέναι, ἐτέραν δὲ ἐπεισάγειν, ἕνα ἄνδρα 
ποιήσας, πολλὰς ἂν ἔπλασε γυναῖκας. 

Νῦν δὲ καὶ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς δημιουργίας καὶ τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς νομοθεσίας 

ἔδειξεν, ὅτι ἕνα δεῖ μιᾷ συνοικεῖν διαπαντὸς, καὶ μηδέποτε διαῤ- 

la) lay > \ 

ῥήγνυσθαι. Kat ὅρα πῶς dyow* Ὃ ποιήσας ἐξ ἀρχῆς, ἄρσεν Kat 

θῆλυ ἐποίησε: τουτέστιν, "EK μιᾶς ῥίξης ἐγένοντο" καὶ εἰς ἕν σῶμα 


1 Field’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 216; Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 598, 


238 HOLY MATRIMONY 


συνῆλθον" "ἔσονται yap ot δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. Hira φοβερὸν ποιῶν 
τὸ ταύτης κατηγορεῖν τῆς νομοθεσίας, καὶ πηγνὺς τὸν νόμον, οὐκ εἶπε, 
Μὴ διασπᾶτε τοίνυν, μηδὲ χωρίζετε: ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι Ὃ ὁ Θεὸς συνέζευξεν, 
ἄνθρωπος μὴ χωριζέτω. Hi δὲ Μωύσέα προβάλλῃ, ἐγώ σοι λέγω τὸν 
Muotcéws δεσπότην. καὶ μετὰ τούτου καὶ τῷ ὄνῳ ἰσγυ ἰζομα Ὅ 
ωὐσέως δεσπότην, μ τῷ χρόνςᾳ χυρίζομαι. 
Ν Ων > > ἴω " at “ 5 "4 - re \ lA 
γὰρ Θεὸς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποΐησεν αὐτούς" καὶ πρεσβύτερος 
-Ὁ « / 5 Ν A 9 9 lal ia) 5 / x \ “ 
οὗτος ὁ νόμος, εἰ καὶ δοκεῖ παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ νῦν εἰσάγεσθαι, καὶ μετὰ πολλῆς 
, nan A IAN \ ε la) , \ ἢ aA a 
κείμενος τῆς σπουδῆς. Οὐδὲ yap ἁπλῶς προσήγαγε τὴν γυναῖκα τῷ 
ἀνδρὶ, ἀλλὰ καὶ μητέρα ἀφεῖναι ἐκέλευσε καὶ πατέρα. Καὶ οὐδὲ ἐλθεῖν 
πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα ἀπλῶς ἑνομοθέτησεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ κολληθῆναι, τῷ τρόπῳ 
τῆς λέξεως τὸ ἀδιάσπαστον ἐμφαίνων. Καὶ οὐδὲ τούτῳ ἠρκέσθη, ἀλλὰ 
ἃς « 7] ᾽ tA 5 ‘4 " \ Ν ce ’ 
καὶ ἑτέραν μείζονα συνάφειαν ἐπεζήτησεν᾽" ἔσονται yap, φησίν, οἱ δύο 
εἰς σάρκα μίαν. 
Εἶτα ἐπειδὴ τὸν παλαιὸν ἀνέγνω νόμον. τὸν καὶ διὰ πραγμάτων καὶ 
) μον, pay ye 
διὰ ῥημάτων εἰσενεχθέντα, καὶ ἀξιόπιστον ἀπὸ τοῦ δεδωκότος ἀπέφηνε, 
5) Ψ ᾿ς “Ὁ Ν ae 2 fg ἣν Tal 3 a a 
μετ᾽ ἐξουσίας λοιπὸν καὶ αὐτὸς ἑρμηνεύει Kal νομοθετεῖ λέγων Ὥστε 
» ἣν 5 Ν ͵7ὔ 5 Ἂς εἶ / [7 45> He ἴω > Ἂν [7 
οὐκέτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ σὰρξ μία. “Ὥσπερ οὖν σάρκα τεμεῖν ἐναγὲς, οὕτω 
Ν lol ἴων / Ἂς 5 " 7 4 3 \ 
καὶ γυναῖκα διαστῆσαι παράνομον. Kat οὐκ ἔστη μέχρι τούτου, ἀλλὰ 
Ν “" 
καὶ τὸν Θεὸν ἐπήγαγε, λέγων" Ὅ οὖν ὁ Θεὸς συνέζευξεν, ἄνθρωπος μὴ 
χωριζέτω" δεικνὺς ὅτι καὶ παρὰ φύσιν καὶ παρὰ νόμον τὸ γινόμενον" 
\ 7 ἈΝ a / 7 / és Ἂς / Ἂς a AF an 
Tapa φύσιν μὲν, OTL μία διατέμενται σάρξ' παρὰ νόμον δὲ, ὅτι TOV Θεοῦ 
’ὔ Ν , εἶ / 5 \ V4 
συνάψαντος καὶ κελεύσαντος μὴ διαχωρίζεσθαι, αὐτοὶ συνεπιτίθεσθε 


τοῦτο ὃρᾷν. 


Δέ δὲ ε a o A “A 3 λύ ; \ ΦΟΡᾺ 5 aA X > τ 
έγω δὲ ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὃς av ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου 
΄ ss 7 eT a Ἢ δὲ \ IPT Nee ΄ 
πορνείας, καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται. ᾿Καειδὴ γὰρ αὐτοὺς ἐπεστόμισε, 

\ 5 / cr Ν [2 9 Ν “ ᾿ς “ =) \ 
μετὰ αὐθεντίας νομοθετεῖ λοιπὸν, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ TOV βρωμάτων, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ 
‘a 4 Ν \ IX “ / ἣν 3 \ / 
τοῦ σαββάτου. Kat yap ext τῶν βρωμάτων τρεψάμενος αὐτοὺς, τότε 
ὃ λέ θ δος ἂν ¢ > Ν > / , a aN BA 0 4 \ 
ιαλέχθη τοῖς ὄχλοις, OTL OV τὸ εἰσερχόμενον κοινοῖ TOV ἄνθρωπον" καὶ 
ἐπὶ τοῦ σαββάτου ἐπιστομίσας αὐτούς φησιν" “Ὥστε ἔξεστιν ἐν σαβ- 

7 A qn nN nan > fe 
βάτῳ καλῶς ποιεῖν: καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτος ᾿Αλλ’ ὅπερ ἐκεῖ 
, A Nv? A “ \ 5 las la > / > 
συνέβη τοῦτο καὶ ἐνταῦθα. “Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐκεῖ τῶν lovoaiwy ἐπιστομισ- 
/ “ a 
θέντων ot μαθηταὶ ἐθορυβήθησαν, καὶ προσελθόντες αὐτῷ μετὰ Lleérpov 
” / ε Ta Ἂς ἧς tae a 4 Ν Lay 
ἔλεγον: Φράσον ἡμῖν τὴν παραβολὴν ταὐτῆν᾽ οὕτω καὶ viv θορυβη- 
ya ” 5 2 > \ ε eed nN > bj js \ 
θέντες ἔλεγον: Ki οὕτως ἐστὶν ἢ αἰτία τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, συμφέρει μὴ 
γαμῆσαι. Kai γὰρ νῦν ἐνόησαν μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον τὸ λεχθέν. Διὰ 
A 7 \ > 7 “a Ν > Ἂς 3 Pde X% 2 / 
τοῦτο τότε μὲν ἐσίγησαν, νῦν δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἀντίῤῥησις καὶ ἀπόκρισις 
/ \ > / Ἂς ΦᾺ Ἂς Ἂ ε ’ 5 / > 
γέγονε, καὶ ἐρώτησις καὶ πεῦσις, καὶ σαφέστερος ὃ νόμος ἐφάνη, ἐρω- 
an > te οἷ “ x > rc 5 la oN Le ue. > an 
τῶσιν αὐτόν. Kat φανερῶς μὲν ἀντειπεῖν ov τολμῶσι" τὸ δὲ ἐξ αὐτοῦ 


BN “A ΡΣ Ἂν Ἂν! > / ne £ » 
βαρὺ δοκοῦν εἶναι καὶ φορτικὸν εἰς μέσον προάγουσι λέγοντες" [αἱ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 23 


¢ > \ e Suey “ 3 é Ν ia XQ > , 
οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ αἰτία τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μετὰ τῆς γυναικὸς, οὐ συμφέρει 
an \ ,ὔ > \ 286 2 Ν a f 
yapnoa. Kat yap σφόδρα ἐπαχθὲς ἐδόκει εἶναι τὸ γυναῖκα πάσης 

3 7 
κακίας γέμουσαν ἔχειν, καὶ ἀνέχεσθαι ἀνημέρου θηρίου διαπαντὸς ἔνδον 
συγκεκλεισμένου. 

¢ 9 3 / es 
Καὶ iva μάθῃς, ὅτι σφόδρα τοῦτο αὐτοὺς ἐθορύβει, ὁ Μάρκος αὐτὸ 
A 5 a 5) / 5) \ ε 
δηλῶν ἔλεγεν, ὅτι κατ᾽ ἰδίαν εἶτον αὐτῷ. Τί δέ ἐστιν, Ki οὕτως ἐστὶν ἢ 
SAG Anes θ 7, \ a Nee ass T 7, 3 ὃ \ A 
αἰτία τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μετὰ τῆς γυναικός ; ουτέστιν, εἰ διὰ τοῦτο 
, Ψ ἃ 5. pan oe eee Seas , 3S ΄ ΕἸ το 
συνήφθη, ἵνα ἐν ὦσιν" ἢ ἐκεῖνο, Ki αἰτιαν λήψεται ἐπὶ τούτοις ὁ ἀνὴρ, 
\ an na ΄ / X > , ΄, 
καὶ πανταχοῦ παρανομεῖ ἐκβάλλων, κουφότερον πρὸς ἐπιθυμίαν μάχ- 
θ ΄ \ Ν ε Ν Ν nN A : ΄ὕ mi > ε 
εσθαι φύσεως καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἢ πρὸς γυναῖκα πονηράν. i οὖν ὁ 
~ 3 > ¢ TOA ΄ \ ΄ a Se ech \ 
Χριστὸς ; οὐκ εἶπεν ὅτι Nat, κουφότερον, καὶ ποίει τοῦτο: ἵνα μὴ 
/ o 7 δ lay / 2) ic 5 ) 5 7 “ 5 , 
νομίσωσιν OTL νόμος TO πρᾶγμά ἐστιν᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἐπήγαγεν᾽ Οὐ πάντες 
la IAA? 5 δέδ ὰ Φ , Ν an / ss Ν ὃ » \ / A 
χωροῦσιν, a οἷς δέδοται" ἐπαίρων τὸ πρᾶγμά, Kal δεικνὺς μέγα ὄν, 
καὶ ταύτῃ ἐφελκόμενος καὶ προτρέπων. ᾿Αλλ’ ὅρα ἐνταῦθα ἐναντι- 
Ms AS Ν Ἃς / x “ ‘ 5 » \ / 
oroyiav, Αὐτὸς μὲν yap μέγα φησὶ TovTo* ἐκεῖνοι δὲ κουφότερον. 
\ \ 3 ΄ " , \ ἢ saa 7, ε A 
at yo at, Kal πα 
Καὶ yap ἀμφότερα ἔδει yever Oar, 1 ρ᾽ αὐτοῦ μέγα ὁμολογηθῆναι, 
ἵνα προθυμοτέρους ἐργάσηται, καὶ ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς κου- 
) ial “ \ ye a“ x / 4 Ν 
φότερον δειχθῆναι, ἵνα καὶ ταύτῃ μᾶλλον τὴν παρθενίαν ἕλωνται καὶ 
\ 3 , ) \ \ Ν \ 6 , Cs ἐς θὲ 5 
τὴν ἐγκράτειαν. Krew) γὰρ τὸ περὶ παρθενίας εἰπεῖν ἐπαχθὲς εἶναι 
ἐδόκει, ἐκ τῆς ἀνάγκης τοῦ νόμου τούτου εἰς τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν αὐτοὺς 


ἐκείνην ἐνέβαλεν. 


Homily on the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant.' 
Πάλιν περὶ γάμου καὶ γυναικὸς διαλεγουμένου τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ 
7 e ε 5 / “ Ἂς / 4 A 
λέγοντος, ὅτι Ὃ ἀπολύων γυναῖκα παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ 
αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, καὶ πᾶσαν κακίαν γυναικὸς παραινοῦντος φέρειν 
πλὴν πορνείας μόνης, ὁ Πέτρος, τῶν ἄλλων σιγώντων, προσελθὼν ἔλεγε 
τῷ Χριστῷ, Hi οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ αἰτία τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μετὰ τῆς γυναικὸς, οὐ 
ὥ lay ag aS: lay ~ \ lal L L 
συμφέρει γαμῆσαι. Ὅρα καὶ ἐνταῦθα πῶς καὶ THY πρέπουσαν διδασκάλῳ 
Ἂς 5 7 Ἂς “ “ lal > 7 te JAN > lay 
τιμὴν ἐφύλαξε, καὶ τῆς TOV λοιπῶν ἐφρόντισε σωτηρίας, οὐδὲ ἐνταῦθα 


ewes A yt τᾷ an 
ὑπὲρ TOV καθ’ ἑαυτὸν μεριμνῶν. 


Hom. in illud “propter fornicationes autem unusquisque suam 
uxorem habeat.” 2 
Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἴσον οὐκ ἔχοντα γυναῖκα πορνεύειν, Kal μετὰ γάμον 
/ Ν 2 lal a IQN Ν / Ν “ / 
πάλιν τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο ποιεῖν. Οὐδὲ yap πορνεία τὸ τοιοῦτο λοιπόν 
ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ μοιχεία. Hi γὰρ καὶ παράδοξον ἐστι τὸ εἰρημένον, ἀλλ᾽ 
ἀληθές. 


Οὐκ ἀγνοοῦμεν γὰρ ὅτι πολλοὶ μοιχείαν νομίζουσιν, ὅταν τις ὕπαν- 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 21. 2 Ibid, tom. iii. p. 213, 


240 HOLY MATRIMONY 


/ “ / Ἂ 5 \ Ν A 4 nf 1 4 
Spov φθείρῃ γυναῖκα μόνον" ἐγὼ δὲ κἂν δημοσίᾳ πόρνῃ, Kav θεραπαινίδι, 
(ἂν ἄλλ ὶ ικὲ ἄνδρα οὐκ ἐχούσῃ πρόσχῃ κακῶς καὶ ἀκολάστως 
κἂν ἄλλῃ τινὶ γυναικὶ ἄνδρα ἐχούσῃ πρόσχῃ ς ; 
” r , ἧς “Ἁ > / 5 NX \ 7 > τς 
ἔχων γυναῖκα, μοιχείαν τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶναί φημι. Ov yap δὴ μόνον ἀπὸ 
a“ “nw ἴω. / 
τῶν ὑβριζομένων, ἀλλὰ Kal ἀπὸ τῶν ὑβριζόντων τὸ τῆς μοιχείας συν- 
/ ” Ἧς 4 st + / ” nN “Δ Ν 
ίσταται ἔγκλημα. Μὴ γάρ μοι τοὺς ἔξωθεν νόμους εἴπῃς νῦν, οἵ τὰς 
μὲν γυναῖκας μοιχευομένας εἰς δικαστήριον ἕλκουσι Kat εὐθύνας ἀπ- 
2 lal 5 ig 
αὐτοῦσιν, ἄνδρας καὶ γυναῖκας ἔχοντας Kal θεραπαινίσι προφθειρομένους 
Stuns A 52.7 > ἃ. oS a Ν A Aa > ΄ 
οὐκ ἀπαιτοῦσιν εὐθύνας" GAN ἐγώ σοι τὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ νόμον ἀναγνώσομαι, 
ὁμοίως καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀγανακτοῦντα, καὶ 


μοιχείαν εἶναι τὸ πρᾶγμα λέγοντα. 


ΤΠ ΟΣ σε 19} S00 a eed Oe 
Ki τοίνυν ὁ κολλώμενος τῇ πόρνῃ ἕν σῶμά ἐστι, καὶ αὐτὸς γίνεται 


SK ΄ ΄ \ a Ons ε 7ὔ {7 
μιαρὸς πορνευουσῆ μιγνύυμενος, διὰ TOUTO ἀφίπταται 1) καθαρότης απασα. 


De libello repudii.2 (Homily on 1 Cor. vii. 39, 40.) 
Γυνὴ, φησὶ, δέδεται νόμῳ. Οὐκοῦν od δεῖ ἀποσχίζεσθαι ζῶντος τοῦ 
5 Ἂς 5. ΧΝ “ 3 ἣν / IQN Vs ε r , 
ἀνδρὸς, οὐδὲ ἕτερον ἐπεισάγειν νυμφίον, οὐδὲ δευτέροις ὁμιλεῖν γάμοις. 
Καὶ ὅρα πῶς μετὰ ἀκριβείας καὶ αὐτῇ τῶν λέξεων τῇ φύσει κέχρηται. 
Οὐ γὰρ εἶπε, Συνοικείτω τῷ ἀνδρὶ, ef’ ὅσον χρόνον (y* ἀλλὰ τί; Τυνὴ 
δέδεται νόμῳ, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ζῇ" ἀλλὰ τί; Τυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ, ἐφ᾽ 
¢ 7 = 2 5 i ᾿ ΣΕ τ τὰ pe β βλί 5 / ὃ Sa Sy 
ὅσον χρόνον (7 ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς" ὥστε Kav βιβλίον ἀποστασίου dw, Kat 
τὴν οἰκίαν apy, κἂν πρὸς ἄλλον ἀπελθῃ, τῷ νόμῳ δέδεται, καὶ μοιχαλίς 
ἐστιν ἡ τοιαύτη. 
"Hav τοίνυν ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐκβαλεῖν βούληται τὴν γυναῖκα, ἢ ἡ γυνὴ τὸν 
" Ὁ 3 κ ΄ » , θ A ἐ 7 “Ἔν Ν ΠῚ ἘΝ 
ἄνδρα ἀφεῖναι, ταύτης ἀναμιμνησκέσθω τῆς ῥήσεως, καὶ τὸν IlavAov 
, “ Ν 7 2 Ἂς “ \ / % 
νομιζέτω παρεῖναι Kat καταδιώκειν αὐτὴν βοῶντα καὶ λέγοντα, 1 υνὴ 
δέδεται νόμῳ. Καθάπερ γὰρ ot δραπετεύοντες οἰκέται, κἂν τὴν οἰκίαν 
ἀφῶσι τὴν δεσποτικὴν, τὴν ἅλυσιν ἔχουσιν ἐπισυρομένην᾽ οὕτω καὶ 
r Bh x ” 5 lay ΩΝ / », / > Ἃς 
γυναῖκες, κἂν τοὺς ἄνδρας ἀφῶσι, τὸν νόμον ἔχουσι καταδικάζοντα ἀντὶ 
ἁλύσεως, κατηγοροῦντα μοιχείαν, κατηγοροῦντα τῶν λαμβανόντων, καὶ 
, » ΄, ὦ ἧς " \ ΄ x , , > \ 
λέγοντα" Τ]ερίεστιν ὃ ἀνὴρ ἔτι, καὶ μοιχεία TO γινόμενόν ἐστι. [υνὴ 
Ἂς Υ 7 Bb) 9 aes / ie ε See A \ “ ε 5 
γὰρ δέδεται νόμῳ, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ᾧ) ὃ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀπο- 
λελυμένην γαμῶν μοιχᾶται. Καὶ πότε, φησὶν, ἐξέσται αὐτῇ δευτέροις 
« an Yd ‘ / A « lan ¢e / 5 bi 4 «ς > \ 
ὁμιλῆσαι γάμοις; Πότε; Ὅταν τῆς ἁλύσεως ἀπαλλαγῃ, ὅταν ὁ ἀνὴρ 
aA lay 5 
τελευτήσῃ. Τοῦτο γοῦν δηλῶν, οὐ προσέθηκεν, ὅτι "Kav τελευτήσῃ ὁ 
5 > td 5 Ἂ - v3 ͵ lay a 
ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ Gere’ γαμηθῆναι, ἀλλ᾽ Kav κοιμηθῇ, 
μονονουχὶ παραμυθούμενος τὴν ἐν χερείᾳ, καὶ πείθων μένειν ἐπὶ τῷ 


ae nS \ \ διά 3 κ ΄ὕ΄ One > ν ΄ ΄ ε 
TPOTEPW, KAL μὴ TEPOV ELOAYAVELV νυμφίον. UK εἐτελευτῆσε σου O 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. x. p. 154. ? Ibid. tom. iii. p. 218. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 241 


ἀνὴρ, ἀλλὰ καθεύδει. Tis καθεύδοντα οὐκ ἀναμένει; Διὰ τοῦτό φησιν, 
"Hay δὲ κοιμηθῃ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι" οὐκ εἶπε, Vapeio Ou, 
ἵνα μὴ δόξῃ βιάζεσθαι καὶ ἀναγκάζειν: οὔτε ἐκώλυσε βουλομένην 
- al ig / ” Ἂν ὧν, / 3 Ν ὃς νά 
ὁμιλεῖν δευτέρῳ γάμῳ, οὔτε μὴ θέλουσαν προετρέψατο, ἀλλὰ τὸν νόμον 
ἀνέγνω εἰπὼν, ᾿λευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι. ᾿Ελευθέραν δὲ 
5 \ Ἂν ἃς a“ s AN \ “Ὁ fF A aq a 
αὐτὴν μετὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς τελευτὴν γεγενῆσθαι λέγων, ἔδειξεν OTL πρὸ 
τούτου δούλη ἦν, ζῶντος ἐκείνου" δούλη δὲ οὗ ἡ ἢ έ μι 
n ἦν, ζῶντος ἐκείνου: δούλη δὲ οὖσα καὶ ὑποκειμένη τῳ νόμῳ, 
ΠῚ / 7 > Ys - “A lal fe ¢€ ts 
κἂν μυριάκις βιβλίον ἀποστασίου λάβῃ, τῷ τῆς μοιχείας ἁλίσκεται 
/ 5 ᾽ν» Ν X\ ” / 9 / a“ ᾿ Xx \ 
νόμῳ. Οἰκέταις μὲν yap ἔξεστι δεσπότας ἀμείβειν ζῶντας γυναικὶ de 
3, " ” 3 / “A a“ 5 7] » NX Ἂς nN 7] 
οὐκ ἔξεστιν ἄνδρας ἀμείβειν, ζῶντος τοῦ ἀνδρός" ἐπεὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα μοιχεία 
ἐστί, Μὴ γάρ μοι τοὺς παρὰ τοῖς ἔξωθεν κειμένους νόμους ἀναγνῴς, 
τοὺς κελεύοντας διδόναι βιβλίον ἀποστασίου, καὶ ἀφίστασθαι, Οὐ γὰρ 
\ \ fd / / Ν / (4 Ν > A“ ε ͵7ὔ 
δὴ κατὰ τούτους σοι μέλλει κρίνειν τοὺς νόμους ὁ Θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ 
» 
ἐκείνῃ, ἀλλὰ καθ’ οὗς αὐτὸς ἔθηκε. 
ἢ δὴ \ Ν / > Ψ Ν “ € Hé \ 
πειδὴ γὰρ πρὸς φόνους ἦσαν ἕτοιμοι, καὶ συγγενικῶν αἱμάτων τὰς 
» » 3 »» " ” “ BS 7 ” “ἡ » 7] 5 / 
οἰκίας ἐπλήρουν, καὶ οὔτε TOV οἰκείων, οὔτε TOV ἀλλοτρίων ἐφείδοντο" 
“ Ν ee Ν la oy” oe Ἃ > “ ” Sue 
iva μὴ κατασφάττωσι τὰς γυναῖκας ἔνδον, ἅς ἂν ἀηδῶς ἔχωσιν, ἐκέλευσεν 
’ rf “ 3 “Δ x δὰ x Ων x > ee a 
ἐκβαλεῖν, μεῖζον ἀναιρῶν κακὸν τὴν περὶ τὰς σφαγὰς εὐκολίαν. Ὅτι 
» / Ἂν εν ” > “ lal lal , » 
γὰρ μιαιφόνοι τινὲς ἦσαν, ἄκουε αὐτῶν τῶν προφητῶν λεγόντων᾽ Οἰκο- 
δομοῦντες Σιὼν ἐν αἵματι, καὶ “Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐν ἀδικίαις: καὶ πάλιν, 
Αἵματα ἐφ᾽ αἵμασι μίσγουσι: καὶ πάλιν, At χεῖρες ὑμῶν αἵματος 
πλήρεις. Ὅτι δὲ οὐ κατὰ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ κατὰ τῶν 
οἰκείων ἐμαίνοντο, καὶ τοῦτο δηλῶν ὁ Προφήτης ἔλεγε: Καὶ ἔθυσαν 
Ν ΦΎΛΑΝ > lay \ \ 7 5 las Tal 7 «ε Ν 
τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας αὐτῶν τοῖς δαιμονίοις. Ot δὲ 
ΔΛ 9 wn \ / » A » 7 a“ a 3 > Ἣν 
παίδων αὐτῶν μὴ φεισάμενοι, οὐκ ἂν ἐφείσαντο γυναικῶν. Ἵν᾽ οὖν μὴ 
τοῦτο γένηται, τοῦτο ἐπέτρεψε. 
Ki καλὸν τοῦτο ἦν, φησὶν, οὐκ ἂν ἕνα ἄνδρα ἐποίησε καὶ μίαν γυναῖκα, 
5 Ἀ “ I's ον 5) “a / A > , Ἂν » ” 
ἀλλὰ ἕνα ποιήσας τὸν ᾿Αδὰμ, δύο ἂν ἐποίησε τὰς γυναῖκας, εἴ γε 
ἐβούλετο τὴν μὲν ἐκβαλεῖν τὴν δὲ εἰσαγαγεῖν" νῦν δὲ διὰ τοῦ τρόπου 
A , x , en ye “a SN , aA e . 
τῆς δημιουργίας τὸν νόμον εἰσήγαγεν, ὃν ἐγὼ γράφω νῦν. Llotoy δὴ 
τοῦτον; Τὸ τὴν κληρωθεῖσαν ἐξ ἀρχῆς γυναῖκα, ταύτην ἔχειν δια- 
παντός" οὗτος ἐκείνου παλαιότερος ὁ νόμος, καὶ τοσοῦτον, ὅσον ὁ ᾿Αδὰμ 
n “. - o 5 a“ “nN 5 \ IAN 7 > 7 
τοῦ Μωυσέως. “ὥστε οὐ καινοτομῶ νῦν ἐγὼ, οὐδὲ ξένα ἐπεισφέρω 
δόγματα, ἀλλὰ τοῦ Μωύσέως πρεσβύτερα καὶ ἀρχαιότερα. 


> κ , OX ΄, > 
Kira ἐνδεικνύμενος, ὅτι οὐκ ἐπαινεῖ τὸ γεγενημένον οὐδὲ γάμον εἶναι 
νομίζει, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν αὐτῶν συγκαταβαΐνει, εἰπὼν, Ov δυνή- 
£ 5 x « 7 lol 3 ἊΣ ε a » > / M Ἂχ 
σεται ὃ ἀνὴρ ὁ πρότερος λαβεῖν αὐτὴν ἑαυτῷ γυναῖκα, ἐπήγαγε, Μετὰ 


R 


242 HOLY MATRIMONY 


lal lal / ¢ «ς 7 
τὸ μιανθῆναι αὐτὴν, ἐμφαίνων διὰ τοῦ τρόπου τῆς λέξεως, ὅτι ὁ δεύτερος 
/ / “ 7 3 a“ 
γάμος, ζῶντος TOD πρότερου ἀνδρὸς γενόμενος, μίασμα μᾶλλόν ἐστιν, ἢ 
“ “Ὁ Ἐν τ ὕ, 
γάμος. Διὰ τοῦτο οὐκ εἶπε, Μετὰ τὸ γαμηθῆναι αὐτήν. 
nN by “A Ν ih 
Μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ ἐκείνου, οὔτε αὐτοῦ δικαίως ἂν τις τὴν τοιαύτην 
“4 ξ \ b IQ / > ik Κ Ν Ν ἧς Ν 
προσείποι" ἡ γὰρ μοιχαλὶς οὐδενός ἐστι γυνή. al γὰρ τὰς πρὸς 
ms 7 , 
ἐκεῖνον συνθήκας ἐπάτησε, Kal πρὸς σὲ μετὰ TOV προσηκόντων νόμων 
οὐκ ἦλθε. 
n “ ἴω / 
Ti γὰρ ἐροῦμεν τότε τῷ μέλλοντι κρίνειν ἡμᾶς, ὅταν τὸν νόμον 
Ν > A n! > Ν " 4 Ἢ ἐλ > δὲ λ ΄ 
παρενεγκὼν εἰς μέσον καὶ ἀναγνοὺς εἶποι κέλευσα ἀπολελυμένην 
γυναῖκα μὴ λαμβάνειν, εἰπὼν ὅτι μοιχεία τὸ πρᾶγμα ἐστι. 1]ῶς οὖν 
Tas “ \ 7 > 
ἐτόλμησας ἐπὶ κεκωλυμένον γάμον ἐλθεῖν; Τί ἐροῦμεν, καὶ τί azo- 
Yd 5 \ “ Ν Ν “ 4 θ 4 / > A 
κρινούμεθα; Οὐ yap det τοὺς παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν κειμένους νόμους ἐκεῖ 
ων la fd 
προβαλέσθαι, GAN ἀνάγκη σιγῶντας καὶ δεδεμένους εἰς TO τῆς γεέννης 
> 7 A“ \ “A “~ \ ~ Ν 5 A LO fe 
ἀπάγεσθαι πῦρ μετὰ TOV μοιχῶν καὶ τῶν τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους ἀδικησάντων 
γάμους" ὅ τε γὰρ ἀπολύσας χωρὶς αἰτίας, τῆς ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ, ὅ τε ἐκ- 
βεβλ » a D aveoe ζῶν διοίω ετὰ \ ἐκβληθεί 
εβλημένην γαμῶν, τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ζῶντος, ὁμοίως μετὰ τὴς ἐκβληθείσης 
κολάζονται. Διὸ παρακαλῶ, καὶ δέομαι καὶ ἀντιβολῶ, μῆτε ἄνδρας 
ἐκβάλλειν γυναῖκας, μήτε γυναῖκας ἄνδρας ἀφιέναι, ἀλλ᾽ ἀκούειν τοῦ 
Παύλου λέγοντος: Τυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ᾧῆ 6 ἀνὴρ 
b Neen aN Ν Ne cS > / > Ν - / ἴω / 
αὐτῆς" ἐὰν δὲ κοιμηθῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι, μόνον 
ἐν Κυρίῳ. 
/ Ἂς +” 7 6 mn 7 me 4 > a 
Iloiav yap ἔχοιεν συγγνώμην ot tov Ι]αύλου καὶ δεύτερον ἐπιτρέπ- 
οντὸος γάμον μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν τοῦ συνοικοῦντος, καὶ τοσαύτην παρ- 
ἔχοντος ἄδειαν, πρὸ τῆς τελευτῆς τολμῶντες τοῦτο ποιεῖν; τίνος ἂν 
΄ » ΄ By) a ε ΄ a 9 A Ν - 
τύχοιεν ἀπολογίας, ἢ οὗτοι οἱ ζώντων τῶν ἀνδρῶν τὰς γυναῖκας λαμ- 


βάνοντες, ἢ ἐκεῖνοι οἱ πρὸς τὰς πανδήμους ἀπερχόμενοι πόρνας ; 


‘THEODORET. 
Graecarum Affectionum Curatio. Disp. tx. 

Kat ὃ μὲν ἀδεῶς καὶ ταῖς ἀλλοτρίαις κοινωνεῖν ἐνομοθέτησε γυναιξίν" 
« Ἂν ia A \ > ἊΝ Ἂν A “ 5 ” εὐ 
6 δὲ τῆς φύσεως ποιητὴς ἐπειδὴ καὶ δημιουργῶν τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὴν 

, o 3 > an ” \ ¢ la / \ Q , 
φύσιν ἕνα ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἄνδρα καὶ μίαν γυναῖκα διέπλασε, καὶ τὸ διαλύειν 
> ΄ τ ΄ ΄ \ , > N , ” N 
ἀπαγορεύει τὸν γάμον, μίαν δὲ μόνην ἀφορμὴν διαλύσεως ἔδωκε, τὴν 
ἀληθῶς διασπῶσαν τὴν ζεύγλην. las γὰρ, φησὶν, ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν 
γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι" καὶ 


ὃ ἀπολελυμένην γαμῶν μοιχᾶται. Διὰ δὲ τούτων πάντα φέρειν κελεύει 





: Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 1053. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 243 


τὰ τῆς γυναικὸς ἐλαττώματα, κἂν λάλος 7, κἂν μέθυσος, κἂν εἰς λοι- 
δορίαν προχειροτάτη᾽" εἰ δέ γε τοῦ γάμου παραλύσει τοὺς νόμους καὶ 
πρὸς ἕτερον ἴδοι, τηνικαῦτα λύειν κελεύει τὴν ζεύγλην. Τοιαῦτα δὲ 
/ Ν ἥν a“ / vA τ \ i 3 7 
πάλιν καὶ διὰ τοῦ σκυτοτόμον νενομοθέτηκε" Kal Κορινθίοις ἐπιστέλλων 


ἐκεῖνος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις νόμους προσήνεγκε. 


Commentary on Malachi ii. 13 sqq.! 

“Εἴπατε yap, Τί ἄλλο ᾧητεῖ ὁ Θεὸς ἢ σπέρμα; ᾿Αλλ’ ἐγὼ παρ- 
εγγυῶ ὑμῖν, τούτων ἀποστάντας τῶν λόγων, τοὺς θείους νόμους φυλάξαι, 
καὶ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς συζευυχθεῖσαν γυναῖκα τοῦ ζυγοῦ μὴ χωρίσαι." 

᾿Επειδὴ δὲ ἡδει τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων τὸ μανικὸν ὁ τῶν ὅλων Θεὸς, ὅτι τῆς 
μισουμένης ἀπαλλαγῆναι βουλόμενοι μὲν, οὐ δυνάμενοι δὲ διὰ τὸν νόμον, 
καὶ φόνον ταύτης τολμήσουσι' συγχωρεῖ τὸ ἔλαττον κακὸν, iva κωλύσῃ 
τὸ μεῖζον" καί φησίν" ““᾿Εὰν μισήσῃς, ἐξαπόστειλον." Συναφθήσεται 
γὰρ ἑτέρῳ, καὶ per’ ὀδύνης οὐ βιώσεται. "Ev τοῖς ἱεροῖς Εὐαγγελίοις 
παιδεύων ἀρετὴν ἀντικρὺς βοᾷ: “Πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ 
παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι" καὶ 6 ἀπολελυμένην 
γαμῶν μοιχᾶται. Καὶ ἐνταῦθα δὲ ταυτὸ τοῦτο αἰνίττεται. Τυμνω- 
θήσεται, φησὶ, τὰ κεκρυμμένα ὑμῶν βουλεύματα, λέγει Κύριος παντο- 
κράτωρ. Κἂν μή διά τινα πρόφασιν δικαίαν καὶ εὔλογον διαλύσητε τὸν 
γάμον, κριτὴς ὑμῶν ἔσται τῶν ὅλων ὁ Κύριος. οι γαροῦν, φυλάξασθε 
ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν, καὶ μὴ ἐγκαταλίπητε τὴν συνθήκην. Χαλινώσατε, 
φησὶ, τὰς κακὰς ὁρμὰς, καὶ τὰς περὶ τοῦ γάμου γεγενημένας μὴ δια- 


σπάσητε συνθήκας. 


Commentary on 1 Corinthians vii. 10, 11.? 

Τῆς ᾿υὐαγγελικῆς νομοθεσίας ἀνέμνησεν. “O γὰρ Κύριος ἐν τοῖς 
« A 5 / δ ‘ Ilé e 9 λύ ἣν me 3 nN ἐν 
ἱεροῖς ὐαγγελίοις ἔφη Gs ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς 
λόγου πορνείας. ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. Διὸ τοῦτο προστέθεικεν" Οὐκ 

x ρ ἢ ΡΟ Χ ] 
ἐγὼ ἀλλ᾽ ὁ Κύριος. Td δὲ, Mevérw ἄγαμος ἢ τῷ ἀνδρὲ καταλλαγήτω, 

» ΕΣ 5 ᾽ὔὕ “a Ἂν 5 lal 5 λήλ >’ yf Xx 5} 
οὐκ ἔστιν ἐναντίον τῷ, Μὴ ἀποστερεῖτε ἀλλήλους εἰ μή τι ἂν ἐκ συμ- 
φώνου. ?Kxetva γὰρ τοῖς μὴ δι’ ἄλλην πρόφασιν χωριζομένοις, ἀλλὰ 
διὰ μόνην ἐγκράτειαν, εἴρηται" ἐνταῦθα δὲ τοῖς περὶ ἑτέρων πραγμάτων 
ζυγομαχοῦσι νομοθετεῖ. Καὶ πειρᾶται μὲν ἀῤῥαγῆ φυλάξαι τοῦ γάμου 
Ν , A \ δὲ “ie > θ fe = 7, θ ΩΝ x 
τὴν ζεύγλην' συγκατιὼν δὲ Ty ἀσθενείᾳ, τῳ χωριζομένῳ νομοθετεῖ τὴν. 
ἐγκράτειαν" καὶ ταύτῃ κωλύων τὴν τοῦ γάμου διαίρεσιν. ᾿Απείργων 

A 7 

yap ἑτέρῳ συνάπτεσθαι, πρὸς TOV πρότερον γάμον ἐπανελθεῖν μέρος 


ε-»ἵ a 
EKATEPOV συνωθεῖ, 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 1973. 2 Tbid, tom. iii. p. 276. 
R 2 


244 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Commentary on Romans vii. 
4 Ta \ id / 5 ἣζ Ν Ἂν “ ε Ὺ 

Μοιχεύτριαν καλεῖ, φησὶν, ὁ νόμος, οὐ τὴν μετὰ τὴν τοῦ ὁμόζυγος 
τελευτὴν συναπτομένην ἑτέρῳ, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἔτι περιόντος τοῦ συνοικοῦντος 
DY 7, 3 Te \ ε > ΄, 5 ς , a 
ἄλλῳ συζευγνυμένην᾽ ταύτην yap, ws ἐξυβρίζουσαν εἰς τὸν νόμον τοῦ 
γάμου, τιμωρεῖσθαι κελεύει. ὔδηλον τοίνυν ws, τοῦ ἀνδρὸς δεξαμένου 
τοῦ βίου τὸ πέρας, ἔννομον, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ παράνομον, τὸ ἑτέρῳ γήμασθαι τὴν 

ρας, ἔννομον, ράνομον, ρῳ γήμ ὴ 

χηρεύουσαν. Kat γδει μὲν ὁ θεῖος ᾿Απόστολος ὡς ἄδειαν καὶ τοῖς ζῶσιν 
ὁ νόμος ἐδεδώκει διαζευγνύναι τὸν γάμον, ὅταν οὐ καταθύμιος ἧ. ᾿Αλλὰ 
an nw / » ᾽ a Ν oe , X Ν 
τῆς Δεσποτικῆς διδασκαλίας ἐπήκουσεν, ἢ τὸν Mwvoéa πρὸς τὴν 
Ιουδαίων σκληροκαρδίαν τοῦτον ἔφη δεδωκέναι τὸν νόμον, τὸν δὲ τῆς 

te / 5 “ , qa Ἂν ” \ Ἂς 
φύσεως νόμον οὐ ταῦτα προστεθεικέναι. “Eva γὰρ ἄνδρα, φησὶ, καὶ 

, A 2 Ψ ε X > Sean μὴν ΄ '-ν Ν Ἂν 
μίαν γυναῖκαν ἐδημιούργησεν ὁ Θεὸς, ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ διαπλάσει τὸν περὶ τοῦ 
γάμου νόμον τιθείς. 

S. AMBROSE. 


De Abraham, lib. i. 8 8.2 


Quid hoe fecistt mihi? Quare non diaisti mthi quia uxor tua est : 
sed dixistt miht quia soror tua est: et sumpseram eam mihi uxorem ? 
Ht nune ecce mulier tua ante te. tsi natura ferus ac barbarus, 
tamen significat etiam exteris ac barbaris moribus esse curam pudoris, 
et adulterii etiam sibi crimen cavendum. Qui praetendit ignorantiam, 
condemnat intemperantiam. 

Lib. 1. § 25.3 


Sed et vos moneo, virl, maxime qui ad gratiam Domini tenditis, 
non commisceri adulterino corpori (qui enim se jungit meretrici 
unum corpus est) nec dare hance occasionem divortii mulieribus. 
Nemo sibi blandiatur de legibus hominum. Omne stuprum adul- 
terium est, nec viro licet quod mulieri non licet. Eadem a viro, 
quae ab uxore, debetur castimonia, Quidquid in eam quae non sit 
legitima uxor, commissum fuerit adulterii damnatur crimine. Ergo 
advertistis quid debeatis cavere, ne quis sacramentis se indignum 
praebeat. 


Expositio Evangelica secundum Lucam, lib. viii. §2 (in xvi. 18).4 
Noli ergo uxorem dimittere, ne Deum tuae copulae diffitearis 
auctorem. Etenim si alienos, multo magis uxoris debes tolerare et 


emendare mores. Audi quid dixerit Dominus: Qué dimittit mulierem, 
facit eam moechari. EKtenim cui non licet, vivente viro, mutare 





1 Migne’s Ed, tom. iii. p. 114. 2 Tbid. tom. i. p. 423, 
3 Ibid. tom. i. p. 431. 4° [bids tom wie p17 60. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 245 


conjugium, potest obrepere libido peccandi. Itaque qui auctor 
erroris, etiam reus culpae est. Quo cum parvulis feta dimittitur ? 
Quo titubanti vestigio grandaeva detruditur? Durus, si excludas 
parentem, pignora teneas, ut ad contumeliam charitatis, addas etiam 
pletatis injuriam ; durus, si propter matrem etiam filios simul pellas ; 
cum magis redimere a patre liberi debeant culpam parentis. Quam 
periculosum si fragilem adolescentulae aetatem errori offeras! Quam 
implum, si ejus destituas senectutem, cujus defloraveris juventutem ! 
Ergo inhonoratis stipendiis et veteranum imperator dimittat in- 
gloriam, atque imperli sui possessione detrudat; et rusticum laboris 
sul effetum agro suo propulset agricola? An quod in subditos nefas 
est, In comparem fas est. 

Dimittis ergo uxorem quasi jure, sine crimine; et putas id tibi 
licere, quia lex humana non prohibet; sed divina prohibet. Qui 
hominibus obsequeris, Deum verere. Audi legem Domini, cui 
obsequuntur etiam qui leges ferunt: Quae Deus conjunxit, homo non 
separet. 

Sed non solum hic coeleste praeceptum, sed quoddam etiam opus 
Dei solvitur. Paterisne, oro, liberos tuos, vivente te, esse sub 
vitrico ; aut incolumi matre, degere sub noverca? Pone, si repudiata 
non nubat. Et haec viro tibi debuit displicere, cui adultero fidem 
servat? Pone, si nubat. Necessitatis illius tuum crimen est; et 
conjugium quod putas, adulterium est. Quid enim refert, utrum id 
aperta criminis confessione, an mariti specie adulter admittas; nisi 
quod gravius est legem criminis fecisse quam furtum ? 

Sed fortasse dicit aliquis: Quomodo Moyses mandavit dart librum 
repudit, et dimittere uxorem? Qui hoe dicit, Judaeus est; qui hoc 
dicit, Christianus non est. Et ideo quia hoe objicit, quod objectum 
est Domino, respondeat ei Dominus; ad duritiam, inquit, cordis 
vestrt permisit vobis Moyses dare librum repudit, et dimittere uxores - 
ab initio autem non fuit sic. Moyses permisit, inquit, non Deus 
jussit ; ab initio autem Dei lex est. Quae est lex Dei? Relinquet 
homo patirem et matrem et adhoerebit uxort suae, et erunt ambo in carne 
una. Ergo qui dimittit uxorem, carnem suam scindit, dividit corpus, 


Expositio Evangelica secundum Lucam, lib. viii. §9 (in xvi. 18).1 


Tamen quia supra proposuit regnum Dei evangelizare, et cum 
dixisset de lege unum apicem non posse cadere, subjecit: Omnis qui 
dimittit uxorem suam, et ductt alteram, moechatur. Recte admonet 


1 Mione’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1767. 


246 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Apostolus dicens sacramentum hoc magnum esse de Christo et 
Ecclesia. Invenis igitur conjugium quod nemo dubitet a Deo con- 
junctum, cum ipse dicat: Nemo venit ad me, nisi Pater meus, qua 
misit me, attraxerit cum, ille enim solus potuit has nuptias copulare. 
Et ideo mystice Salomon dixit: A Deo praeparabitur viro uxor, Vir 
Christus, uxor ecclesia est ; charitate uxor, integritate virgo. 


S. CHROMATIUS. 
On the Sermon on the Mount, trac. x. 


Unde nune non immerito Dominus ac Salvator noster, sublata illa 
licentia, antiquae constitutionis suae praecepta restaurat. Jubet 
namque matrimonii castum conjugium indissolubili lege servari, 
ostendens conjugii legem a se esse primitus institutam. Ipse enim 
ait: Quod ergo Deus conjunait in unum, homo non separet. Quo 
dicto et passivam Judaeorum licentiam, et stultam ac miserabilem 
Manichaeorum praesumptionem, qui negant a Deo esse conjugia, 
hujus sententiae pronuntiatione damnavit, dicens, excepta causa 
Jorncationis uxorem non licere dimitti: aperte demonstrans, eum 
contra Dei agere voluntatem, qui matrimonium a Deo junctum 
illicita divortii separatione temerare praesumpserit. Unde non 
ignorent, quam grave apud Deum damnationis crimen incurrant, qui 
per effrenatam libidinis voluptatem (absque fornicationis causa) 
dimissis uxoribus, in alia volunt transire conjugia. Quod idcirco 
se credunt impune committere, quia humanis et saeculi legibus id 
videtur permissum, nescientes, in hoc se gravius ac magis delinquere, 
quia humanas leges divinis praeferant ; ut quod illicitum Deus esse 
constituit, ideo licitum credant quia ab homine sit libere permissum. 
Sed sicuti uxorem caste et pure viventem dimittere fas non est; ita 
quoque adulteram dimittere permissum est, quia ipsa mariti consortio 
fecit se indignam, quae in corpus suum peccando, Dei templum ausa 
est violare. 

S. JEROME. 


Hpistola lexvi, ad Oceanum. De morte Fabiolae.* 


Tanta prior maritus vitia habuisse narratur, ut ne scortum quidem 
et vile mancipium ea sustinere posset. Quae si voluero dicere, 
perdam virtutem feminae, quae maluit culpam subire dissidii, quam 
corporis sui infamare partem, et maculas ejus detegere. Hoc solum 
proferam, quod verecundae matronae et Christianae satis est. Prae- 





1 Migne’s Ed. p. 351 (Pat. Lat. tom. xx.). 2 Ibid. tom, i. p. 690. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 247 


cepit Dominus uxorem non debere dimitti, excepta causa forni- 
cationis: et si dimissa fuerit, manere innuptam. Quidquid viris 
jubetur, hoc consequenter redundat in feminas. Neque enim adultera 
uxor dimittenda est, et vir moechus tenendus. ‘Si quis meretrici 
jungitur, unum corpus facit”: ergo et quae scortatori impuroque 
sociatur, unum cum eo corpus efficitur. Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, 
aliae Christi: aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster praecipit. Apud 
illos viris impudicitiae frena laxantur: et solo stupro atque adulterio 
condemnato, passim per lupanaria et ancillulas libido permittitur : 
quasi culpam dignitas faciat, non voluntas. Apud nos quod non 
licet feminis, aeque non licet viris; et eadem servitus pari conditione 
censetur. Dimisit ergo, ut aiunt, vitiosum: dimisit illius et illius 
criminis noxium: dimisit (pene dixi) quod, clamante vicinia, uxor 
sola non prodidit. Sin autem arguitur, quare repudiato marito, non 
innupta permanserit, facile culpam fatebor, dum tamen referam 
necessitatem.  Melius est, inquit Apostolus, nwbere, quam uri. Ado- 
lescentula erat, viduitatem suam servare non poterat. 

Igitur et Fabiola, quia persuaserat sibi, et putabat a se virum jure 
dimissum, nec Evangelii vigorem noverat, in quo nubendi universa 
causatio, viventibus viris, feminis amputatur, dum multa diaboli 
vitat vulnera, unum incauta vulnus accepit. 

Sed quid ego in abolitis et antiquis moror, quaerens excusare 
culpam, cujus paenitentiam ipsa confessa est? Quis hoc crederet, ut 
post mortem secundi viri in semetipsam reversa, quo tempore solent 
viduae negligentes, jugo servitutis excusso, agere se liberius, adire 
balneas, volitare per plateas, vultus circumferre meretricios ; saccum 
indueret ut errorem publice fateretur; et tota urbe spectante Romana | 
ante diem Paschae in Basilica quondam Leterani, qui Caesariano 
truncatus est gladio, staret in ordine penitentium, Episcopo, Pres- 
byteris, et omni populo collacrymantibus, sparsum crinem, ora lurida, 
squalidas manus, sordida colla submitteret? . . . Sic dolebat, quasi 
adulterium commisisset, et multis impendiis medicaminum unum 
vulnus sanare cupiebat. 


Epistola lv. cap. 3.1 (To Amandus, a Priest of Bordeaux.) 


Quaerendum ab eo, id est a me, utrum mulier relicto viro adultero, 
et sodomita, et alio per vim accepto, possit absque poenitentia com- 
municare Ecclesiae, vivente adhuc eo quem prius reliquerat. Quod 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom, i. p. 562. 


248 HOLY MATRIMONY 


legens, illius versiculi recordatus sum: Ad excusandas excusatrones in 
peccatis. _Omnes enim homines vitiis nostris favemus: et quod 
propria facimus voluntate, ad naturae referimus necessitatem. Quo- 
modo si dicat adolescens: vim patior corporis, me ad libidinem ardor 
impellit, ipsa organa membrorum genitalium, et compositio corporis, 
femineos quaerit amplexus. 


Responde itaque sorori, quae a nobis super suo statu quaerit, non 
nostram, sed Apostoli sententiam. An zgnoratis, fratres, scventibus 
enim Legem loquor, quoniam lex dominatur homini, quanto tempore 
vivit? Mulier enim quae sub viro est, vivente viro, astricta est Legt. 
Quod st mortuus fuerit vir ejus liberata est a lege viri. Ergo, vivente 
viro, adultera erit, si duxerit alterum virum. Et in alio loco: Mulier 
alligata est, quanto tempore vivit vir ejus. St autem dormiertt vir 
ejus, Liberata est: cut vult nubat, tantum in Domino. Omnes igitur 
causationes Apostolus amputans, apertissime definivit, vivente viro 
adulteram esse mulierem, si alteri nupserit. Nolo mihi proferas 
raptoris violentiam, matris persuasionem, patris auctoritatem, pro- 
pinquorum catervam, servorum insidias atque contemptum, damna rel 
familiaris. Quamdiu vivit vir, licet adulter sit, licet sodomita, licet 
flagitiis omnibus coopertus, et ab uxore propter haec scelera derelictus, 
maritus ejus reputatur, cui alterum virum accipere non licet. Nec 
Apostolus haee propria auctoritate decernit, sed Christo in se 
loquente, Christi verba secutus est, qui ait in Evangelio: Qui 
dimittit uxoram suam, excepta causa fornicationts, facit eam moechari: 
et qui dimissam acceperit, adulter est. Animadverte quid dicat: Qu7 
dinussam acceperit, adulter est: sive ipsa dimiserit virum, sive a ὙΠῸ 
dimissa sit, adulter est qui eam acceperit. Unde et Apostoli gravem 
conjugii sarcinam intelligentes: Sz zta est, inquiunt, non expedit 
homint uxorem accipere. Ad quos Dominus: Qu potest, inquit, 
capere, capiat.  Statimque sub exemplo trium eunuchorum, vir- 
ginitatis infert’ beatitudinem, quae nulla carnis lege tenetur, 

Neque satis animadvertere potui, quid sit quod dicere voluit, alio 
viro per vim accepto. Quid est, per vim accepto? Congregata 
videlicet multitudine, nolentem rapuit: et quare postea raptorem 
rapta non dimisit? Legat libros Moysi, et inveniet desponsatam 
viro, si in civitate fuerit oppressa, et non clamaverit, puniri quasi 
adulteram. i autem in agro oppressa sit, innoxiam esse a scelere ; 
et violentum. legibus subjacere. Ergo et ista soror, quae, ut dicit, 
vim passa est, ut alteri jungeretur, si vult corpus Christi accipere, et 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 2490 


non adultera reputari, agat poenitentiam: ita duntaxat, ut secundo 
viro, qui non appellatur vir, sed adulter, a tempore poenitentiae non 
copuletur. Quod si ei durum videtur, et semel dilectum non potest 
derelinguere, nec praeferre Dominum voluptati, audiat Apostolum 
conclamantem : Non potestis calicem Domini bibere, et calicem dae- 
monorum. Non potestis mensae Domini communicare, et mensae 
daemoniorum. Et in alio loco: Quae communicatio luci ac tenebris 7 
Qui consensus Christo et Belial? Rem novam loquor, imo non 
novam, sed veterem, quae veteris Testamenti auctoritate firmatur. 
Si reliquerit secundum virum, et reconciliari voluerit priori, non 
potest. Scriptum est enim in Deuteronomio: Sz acceperit homo 
uxorem, et habuerit eam: et non invenerit gratiam in conspectu ejus 
propter aliquam foeditatem, scribet libellum repudit, εἰ dabit in 
manus ejus ; et dimittet eam de domo sua. Cumque egressa alterum 
maritum duxerit ; et tlle quoque oderit eam, dederitque οἱ libellum 
repudii, et dimiserit de domo sua, vel certe mortuus fuerit, non poterit 
prior maritus recipere eam in uxorem. quia polluta est, et abomina- 
bilis facta est coram Domino, . Nec peccare facias terram tuam, quam 
Dominus Deus tuus tradidit tibi possidendam. Unde obsecro te, ut 
consoleris eam, imo provoces ad salutem. Putridae carnes ferro in- 
digent et cauterio ; nec est medicinae culpa, sed vulneris, cum clementi 
crudelitate non parcit medicus, ut parcat, saevit, ut misereatur. 


Ad Jovinianum, lib. 1. cap. 10 (commenting on 1 Cor, vii. 10).1 


Docet enim, juxta sententiam Domini, uxorem, excepta causa 
fornicationis, non repudiandam; et repudiatam, vivo marito, alteri 
non nubere, aut certe viro suo reconciliari debere. 


In Malachiam 11. 14 sqq.? 


Et weorem adolescentiae tuae noli despicere, ut quae tibi virginalt 
primum juncta est matrimonio, perseveret usque ad senectutem. Sed 
poterat fieri, ut principes, sacerdotes, Levitae, populus responderent : 
Praecepit Deus per Moysen, ut cum odio habuerimus uxores, dimit- 
tamus eas. Et legendum est: Dicis mihi scriptum est: Cum odio 
habueris uxorem tuam, dimitte, dictt Dominus Deus Israel. Statimque 
respondit: hoc quidem in Lege praeceptum est, sed propter duritiam 
cordis vestri. Quod plenius Dominus in Evangelio prosequitur : 
Q@uicumque autem, excepta causa fornicationis, uxorem inique dimiserit, 
operiet vestimentum ejus iniquitas, id est, corpus quo anima vestitur, 
dicit Dominus exercituum : ut in quo peccavit, in ipso puniatur. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 223. 2 [bid. tom, vi. p. 1562. 


250 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Commentary on S. Matthew xix.t 


(v. 1.) De Galilaea venerat ad Judaeam; idcirco Pharisaeorum 
Scribarumque factio interrogat eum: utrum liceat homini dimittere 
uxorem suam qualibet causa, ut quasi cornuto teneant eum syllogismo : 
et quodcumque responderit, captioni pateat. Si dixerit, dimittendas 
esse uxores qualibet ex causa, et ducendas alias, pudicitiae praedicator 
sibi videbitur docere contraria. Si autem responderit, non omnem 
ob causam debere dimitti, quasi sacrilegii reus tenebitur ; et adversus 
doctrinam Moysi ac per Moysen Dei, facere judicabitur. Igitur 
Dominus sic responsionem temperat, ut decipulam eorum transeat, 
Scripturam sanctam adducens in testimonium, et naturalem legem, 
primamque Dei sententiam secundae opponens; quae non voluntate 
Dei, sed peccantium necessitate concessa est. 

(v. 4.) Qué respondens ait eis: non legistis, quia qui fecit ab 
initio, masculum et feminam fecit eos? Hoe in exordio Geneseos 
scriptum est. Dicendo autem, masculum et feminam, ostendit 
secunda vitanda conjugia, non enim ait, masculum et feminus, quod 
ex priorum repudio quaerebatur: sed masculum et feminam, ut unius 
conjugis consortia necterentur. 

(vv. 5, 6.) Et dixit: propter hoc dimittet homo patrem et matrem, 
et adhaerebit uxori suae: et erunt duo in carne una. Itaque jam non 
sunt duo, sed una caro. Similiter ait, adhaerebit uxori suae, non 
uxoribus. Ht erunt duo in carne una. Praemium nuptiarum, e 
duabus unam carnem ΠΟΙ. Castitas juncta spiritui, unus efficitur 
spiritus. 

Quod ergo Deus conjunxit, homo non separet. Deus conjunxit, 
unam faciendo carnem viri et feminae: hanc homo non _ potest 
separare, nisi forsitan solus Deus. Homo separat, quando propter 
desiderium secundae uxoris, primam dimittit. Deus separat, qui et 
conjunxerat, quando ex consensu propter servitutem Dei (eo quod 
tempus in arcto sit) sic habemus uxores, quasi non habentes, 

(v. 7.) Dicunt ili: Quid ergo Moyses mandavit dari libellum 
repudit, et dimittere. Aperiunt calumniam quam paraverant. Et 
certe Dominus non propriam sententiam protulerat, sed veteris 
historiae et mandatorum Dei fuerat recordatus, 2 

(v. 8.) Ait illis: quoniam Moyses ad duritiam cordis vestri 
permisit vobis dimittere uxores vestras: ab initio autem non futt sic, 
Quod dicit istius nodi est: Numquid potest Deus sibi esse contrarius, 
ut alind ante jusserit, et sententiam suam novo frangat imperio ? non 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. vii. p. 183. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 204 


ita sentiendum est: sed Moyses cum videret, propter desiderium 
secundarum conjugum, quae vel ditiores, vel juniores, vel pulchriores 
essent, primas uxores interfici, aut malam vitam ducere, maluit 
indulgere discordiam, quam odia et homicidia perseverare. Simulque 
considera, quod non dixit: Propter duritiam cordis vestrt permisit 
vobis Deus, sed Moyses; ut juxta Apostolum consilium sit hominis, 
non imperium Dei. 

(v. 9.) Dico autem vobis, quia quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam, 
nist ob fornicationem, et aliam duxerit, moechatur. Et qui dimissam 
duxerit, moechatur. Sola fornicatio est quae uxoris vincat affectum : 
immo cum illa unam carnem in aliam diviserit, et se fornicatione 
separaverit a marito, non debet teneri: ne virum quoque sub male- 
dicto faciat, dicente Scriptura: Qui adulteram tenet, stultus et imptus 
est. Ubicumque est igitur fornicatio et fornicationis suspicio, libere 
uxor dimittitur. Et quia poterat accidere, ut aliquis calumniam 
faceret innocenti, et ob secundam copulam nuptiarum, veteri crimen 
impingeret, sic priorem dimittere jubetur uxorem, ut secundam, 
prima vivente, non habeat. Quod enim dicit tale est: Si non propter 
libidinem, sed propter injuriam dimittis uxore2m: quare expertus 
infelices priores nuptias, novarum te immittis periculo? Necnon 
quia poterat evenire, ut juxta eamdem legem uxor quoque marito 
daret repudium, eadem cautela praecipitur, ne secundum accipiat 
virum. Et quia meretrix, et quae semel fuerat adultera, opprobrium 
non timebat, secundo praecipitur viro, quod si talem duxerit, sub 
adulterii sit crimine, 

(v. 10.) Dicunt οἱ discipuli ejus: Si ita est causa homini cum 
uxore, non expedit nubere. Grave pondus uxorum est, si excepta 
causa fornicationis, eas dimittere non licet. Quid enim si temulenta 
fuerit, si iracunda, si malis moribus, si luxuriosa, si gulosa, si vaga, 
si jurgatrix, si maledica, tenenda erit istiusmodi? Volumus nolumus 
sustinenda est. Cum enim essemus liberi, voluntarie nos subjecimus 
servituti. Videntes ergo Apostoli grave uxorum jugum, proferunt 
motum animi sui, et dicunt: 8. ita est causa homini cum uxore, non 
expedit nubere. 

S. Hinary or Poictrers. 
Commentary on S. Matthew, α. iv. § 22.1 


Aequitatem in omnes concilians, manere eam maxime in con- 
jugiorum pace praecepit ; legi addens plura, nihil demens. Nec sane 
profectus argui potest. Nam cum lex libertatem dandi repudii ex 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 939. 


252 HOLY MATRIMONY 


libelli auctoritate tribuisset, nunc marito fides evangelica non solum 
voluntatem pacis indixit, verum etiam reatum coactae in adulterium 
uxoris imposuit, si alii ex discessionis necessitate nubenda sit: nullam 
aliam causam desinendi a conjugio praeseribens, quam quae virum 
prostitutae uxoris societate pollueret. 


S. AUGUSTINE. 
De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. i. §39.° 


Dictum est autem, Quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam, det alli 
libellum repudi. WHaec justitia minor est Pharisaeorum, cui non est 
contrarium quod Dominus dicit, Hgo autem dico vobis, Quicumque 
dimiserit uxorem suam excepta fornicaticnis causa, facit eam moechart ; 
et qui solutam a viro duxertt, maechatur, Non enim qui praecepit 
dari libellum repudii hoc praecepit, ut uxor dimittatur: sed, Qui 
dimiserit, inquit, det d/l libellum repudi ; ut iracundiam temerariam 
projicientis uxorem libelli cogitatio temperaret. Qui ergo dimit- 
tendi moram quaesivit, significavit quantum potuit duris hominibus, 
se nolle discidium. Et ideo ipse Dominus alio loco de hoe inter- 
rogatus, ita respondit: Hoc Moyses propter duritiam vestram fectt. 
@uantumvis enim durus esset qui vellet dimittere uxorem, cum 
cogitaret lbello repudii dato jam sine periculo eam posse nubere 
alteri, facile placaretur. Dominus ergo ad illud confirmandum ut 
non facile uxor dimittatur, solam causam fornicationis excepit: 
caeteras vero universas molestias si quae forte exstiterint, jubet pro 
fide conjugali et pro castitate fortiter sustineri; et moechum dicit 
etiam virum qui eam duxerit, quae soluta est a viro. 

Cujus rei apostolus Paulus terminum ostendit, quia tamdiu obser- 
vandum dicit, quamdiu vir ejus vivit: illo autem mortuo, dat nubendi 
licentiam. Hance enim etiam ipse regulam tenuit, et in ea non suum 
consilium, sicut in nonnullis monitis, sed praeceptum Domini jubentis 
ostendit, cum ait: Hs autem qui sunt in conjugio praecipio, non ego, 
sed Dominus, mulierem a viro non discedere; quod st discesserit, 
manere tinnuptam, aut viro suo reconciliari: et vir uxorem non 
dimittat. Credo, simili forma, ut si dimiserit, non ducat aliam, aut 
reconcilietur uxori. Fieri enim potest ut dimittat uxorem causa 
fornicationis, quam Dominus exceptam esse voluit. Jamvero si nec 
illi nubere conceditur vivo viro a quo recessit, neque huic alteram 
ducere viva uxore quam dimisit; multo minus fas est illicita cum 
quibuslibet stupra committere. Beatiora sane conjugia judicanda 





3 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii, p. 1248. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 253 


sunt, quae sive filiis procreatis, sive etiam ista terrena prole con- 
tempta, continentiam inter se pari consensu servare potuerint: quia 
neque contra illud praeceptum fit, quo Dominus dimitti conjugem 
vetat; non enim dimittit, qui cum ea non carnaliter, sed spiritualiter 
vivit: et illud servatur, quod per Apostolum dicitur, Reliquum est, 
ut qui habent uxores, quast non habentes sint. 


De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. i. ce. 43.1 


Sed consulamus Apostolum, ne aliquid temere dicamus: His que 
sunt in conjugio, iInquit, praecipio, non ego, sed Dominus, uxorem a 
viro non discedere ; quod si discesserit, manere innuptam, aut viro suo 
reconciliart. Potest enim fieri ut discedat ea causa qua Dominus 
permittit. Aut si feminae licet virum dimittere etiam praeter causam 
fornicationis, et non licet viro; quid respondebimus de hoc quod 
dixit posterius, Ht vir uxorem ne dimittat? Quare non addidit, 
excepta causa fornicationis, quod Dominus permittit; nisi quia 
similem formam vult intelligi, ut si dimiserit (quod causa forni- 
cationis permittitur), maneat sine uxore, aut reconcilietur uxori? 
Non enim male reconciliaretur vir illi mulieri, quam cum lapidare 
nemo ausus esset, dixit ei Dominus: Vade, et vide deinceps ne pecces. 
Quia et qui dicit, Non licet dimittere uxorem, nisi causa fornicationis; 
cogit retinere uxorem, si causa fornicationis non fuerit: si autem 
fuerit, non cogit dimittere, sed permittit: sicut dicitur, Non liceat 
mulieri nubere alteri, nisi mortuo viro; si ante viri mortem nupserit, 
rea est: si post viri mortem non nupserit, non est rea; non enim 
jussa est nubere, sed permissa. Si ergo par forma est in isto jure 
conjugii inter virum et mulierem, usque adeo ut non tantum de 
femina, idem Apostolus dixerit, Mulier non habet potestatem sui 
corporis, sed vir; sed etiam de illo non tacuerit dicens, Similiter et 
vir sui corporis potestatem non habet, sed mulier; si ergo similis 
forma est, non oportet intelligi licere mulieri virum dimittere, nisi 
causa fornicationis, sicut et viro. 


De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. i. ὃ 46.2 


Porro si infidelitas fornicatio est, et idololatria infidelitas, et 
avaritia idololatria, non est dubitandum et avaritiam fornicationem 
esse. Quis ergo jam quamlibet illicitam concupiscentiam potest recte 
a fornicationis genere separare, si avaritia fornicatio est? Ex quo 
intelligitur, quod propter illicitas concupiscentias, non tantum quae 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. 111. p. 1251. 2 Ibid. tom. iii. p, 1252. 


204 HOLY MATRIMONY 


in stupris cum alienis viris aut feminis committuntur, sed omnino 
quaslibet, quae animam corpore male utentem a lege Dei aberrare 
faciunt, et perniciose turpiterque corrumpi, possit sine crimine et vir 
uxorem dimittere, et uxor virum, quia exceptam facit Dominus 
causam fornicationis; quam fornicationem, sicut supra consideratum 
est, generalem et universalem intelligere cogimur. 


De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. 1. ο. 48.1 


Quod autem dicit, Quisqguis solutam a viro duxerit, moechatur ; 
quaeri potest utrum quomodo moechatur ille qui ducit, sic et illa 
quam ducit. Jubetur enim et illa manere innupta, aut viro recon- 
ciliari: sed si discesserit, Inquit, a viro. Multum autem interest 
utrum dimittat, an dimittatur. Si enim ipsa virum dimiserit, et 
alteri nupserit; videtur cupiditate mutandi conjugii virum priorem 
reliquisse, quae sine dubio adulterina cogitatio est. Si autem dimit- 
tatur a viro, cum quo esse cupiebat; moechatur quidem qui eam 
duxerit, secundum Domini sententiam, sed utrum et ipsa tali crimine 
teneatur, incertum est. Quamvis multo minus inveniri possit quo- 
modo cum vir et mulier pari consensu sibi misceantur, unus eorum 
moechus sit, et non sit alter. Hue accedit, quia si moechatur ille 
ducendo eam, quae soluta est a viro, quamquam non dimiserit, sed 
dimissa sit, ipsa eum facit moechari, quod nihilominus Dominus 
vetat. Ex quo colligitur, sive dimissa fuerit, sive dimiserit, oportere 
illam manere innuptam, aut viro reconciliari, 


Retractationes, lib. i. cap. 19, § 6.? 


Item de praecepto quo prohibetur uxor dimitti, nisi propter forni- 
cationem, hic quidem scrupulosissime disputavi. (Lib. i. ¢. 91.) Sed 
quam velit Dominus intelligi fornicationem, propter quam liceat 
dimittere uxorem ; utrum eam quae damnatur in stupris, an illam de 
que dicitur, Perdidistt omnem qui fornicatur abs te, in qua utique et 
ista est (neque enim non fornicatur a Domino, qui tollens membra 
Christi, facit ea membra meretricis) ; etiam atque etiam cogitandum 
est atque requirendum., Nec volo in re tanta tamque ad digno- 
scendum difficili putare lectorem, istam sibi nostram disputationem 
debere sufficere: sed legat et alia, sive nostra quae postea scripta 
sunt, sive aliorum melius considerata atque tractata; vel ipse si 
potest, ea quae hic merito movere possunt, vigilantiore atque intelli- 
gentiore mente discutiat. Non quia omne peccatum fornicatio est ; 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. iii. p. 1253. 2 Ibid. tom. i. p. 616. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 255 


neque enim omnem peccantem Deus perdit, qui quotidie sanctos suos 
exaudit, dicentes, Dimitte nobis debita nostra: cum perdat omnem 
qui fornicatur ab eo. Sed quatenus intelligenda atque limitanda sit 
haec fornicatio, et utruny etiam propter hance liceat dimittere uxorem, 
latebrosissima quaestio est. Licere tamen propter istam quae in 
stupris committitur, nulla quaestio est. Et ubi dixi hoc permissum 
esse, non jussum, non attendi aliam Scripturam dicentem: Qu tenet 
adulteram, stultus et impius est.) Nec sane adulteram dixerim fuisse 
deputandam illam mulierem, etiam posteaquam audivit a Domino, 


Nec ego te damnabo ; vade, deinceps jam noli peccare, si hoc obedi- 
enter audivit. 
Contra Faustum, lib. xix. c. 3.? 


Dictum est, Qui voluerit uxorem dimittere, det ei repudium ; ego 
autem dico, quicumque uxorem suam dimiserit, excepta causa forni- 
cationis, et ipsam moechari faciet, et is erit moechus, si postea 
alteram duxerit. 

De Bono Conjugali, c. 3.° 

Illud nunc dicimus, secundum istam conditionem nascendi et 
moriendi, quam novimus, et in qua creati sumus, aliquid boni esse 
conjugium masculi et foeminae: cujus confoederationem ita divina 
Scriptura commendat, ut nec dimissae a viro nubere liceat alteri, 
quamdiu vir ejus vivit; nec dimisso ab uxore liceat alteram ducere, 
nisi mortua fuerit, quae recessit. 


De Bono Conjugali, c 4. 


Ita mulier. si fide conjugali violata fidem servet adultero, utique 
mala est: sed si nec adultero, pejor est. Porro si eam flagitii 
poeniteat, et ad castitatem rediens conjugalem, pacta ac placita 
adulterina rescindat, miror si eam fidei violatricem vel ipse adulter 
putabit. 

De Bono Conjugali, c. 7.4 

Qui enim dimittit uxorem suam excepta causa fornicationis, facit 
eam moechart. Usque adeo foedus illud initum nuptiale cujusdam 
sacramenti res est, ut nec ipsa separatione irritum fiat: quandoquidem 
vivente viro, et a quo relicta est, moechatur, si alteri nupserit; et 1116 
hujus mali causa est qui reliquit. 

Miror autem si quemadmodum licet dimittere adulteram uxorem, 
ita liceat ea dimissa alteram ducere. Facit enim de hac re sancta 


1 Prov. xviii. 22. 2 Migne’s Ed. tom. viii. p. 849, 
3 Ibid. tom. vi. p, 375. aS hbigge toma Vis p. 378. 


256 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Scriptura difficilem nodum, dicente Apostolo, ex praecepto Domini 
mulierem a viro non debere discedere; quod si discesserit, manere 
innuptam, aut viro suo reconciliari: cum recedere utique et manere 
innupta, nisi ab adultero viro non debeat, ne recedendo ab eo qui 
adulter non est, faciat eum moechari. JReconciliari autem viro vel 
tolerando, si se ipsa continere non potest, vel correcto, forsitan juste 
potest. Quomodo autem viro possit esse licentia ducendae alterius, 
si adulteram reliquerit, cum muleri non sit nubendi alteri, si 
adulterum reliquerit, non video. Quae si ita sunt tantum valet 
illud sociale vinculum conjugum, ut cum causa procreandi colligetur, 
nec ipsa causa procreandi solvatur. Possit enim homo dimittere 
sterilem uxorem, et ducere de qua filios habeat: et tamen non licet ; 
et nostris quidem jam temporibus ac more Romano, nec superducere, 
ut amplius habeat quam unam vivam: et utique relicta adultera vel 
relicto adultero possent plures nasci homines, si vel illa alteri nuberet, 
vel 1116 alteram duceret. Quod tamen si non licet, sicut divina regula 
praescribere videtur ; quem non faciat intentum, quid 5101 velit tanta 
firmitas vinculi conjugalis? Quod nequaquam puto tantum valere 
potuisse, nisi alicujus rei majoris ex hac infirma mortalitate hominum 
quoddam sacramentum adhiberetur, quod deserentibus hominibus atque 
id dissolvere cupientibus, inconcussum illis maneret ad poenam.  Si- 
quidem interveniente divortio non aboletur illa confoederatio nuptialis: 
ita ut sibi conjuges sint, etiam separati: cum illis autem adulterium 
committant, quibus fuerint etiam post suum repudium copulati, vel 
illa viro, vel ille mulieri. Nec tamen nisi in civitate Dei nostri, in 
monte sancto ejus, talis est causa cum uxore, 


Sermon 392, c. 2.1 


Audite, charissimi, membra Christi et matris Catholicae filii. Quod 
dico competentibus, audiant fideles; quod dico fidelibus, audiant 
competentes ; quod dico competentibus et fidelibus, audiant poeni- 
tentes ; quod dico fidelibus et competentibus et poenitentibus, audiant 
catechumeni, audiant omnes: omnes timeant, nemo contemnat. Sit 
mihi in consolationem vester auditus, ne sit vobis in testimonium 
dolor meus. Competentibus dico, Fornicari vobis non licet. Sufficiant 
vobis aut uxores aut nec uxores: concubinas vobis habere non licet. 
Audiat Deus, si vos surdi estis; audiant Angeli ejus, si vos con- 
temnitis. Concubinas vobis habere non licet. Et si non habetis 
uxores, non licet vobis habere concubinas, quas postea dimittatis, ut 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom, v. p. 1710. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 257 


ducatis uxores ; quanto magis damnatio vobis erit, si habere volueritis 
et concubinas et uxores? Non vobis licet habere uxores, quarum 
priores mariti vivunt: nec vobis, feminae, habere viros licet, quorum 
priores uxores vivunt. Adulterina sunt ista conjugia, non jure fori, 
sed jure coelii Nec eam feminam quae per repudium discessit a 
marito, licet vobis ducere vivo marito. Solius fornicationis causa 
licet uxorem adulteram dimittere: sed illa vivente non licet alteram 
ducere. Et vobis, feminae, nec illos viros a quibus per repudium 
(iscesserunt uxores eorum, maritos habere conceditur; non licet: 
adulteria sunt, non conjugia. Contemnitur Augustinus, timeatur vel 
Christus. Nolite imitari turbam malorum, infidelium, filii mei: nolite 
sequi vias latas, quarum finis ad interitum ducit. Qui baptizatus 
fuerit, aut continentiam Deo voveat, aut permaneat cum uxore sua, 
aut si non habet, ducat uxorem. | 


De Bono Viduitatis, c. 4.1 (Commenting on 1 Cor. vii. 6, 7.) 


Vides autem conjugalem pudicitiam et thori christiani matri- 
monialem fidem donum esse, et hoc a Deo: ut illud quod ultra 
hiberorum procreandorum necessitatem modum concumbendi aliqua- 
tenus concupiscentia carnalis excedit, non nuptiarum sit hoc malum, 
sed veniale sit propter nuptiarum bonum. Non enim de conjugio, 
quod copulatur liberorum procreandorum causa, et fide pudicitiae 
conjugalis, et indissolubili, quamdiu ambo vivunt, matrimonii sacra- 
mento, quae omnia bona sunt; sed de illo immodico carnis usu, qui 
in infirmitate conjugum agnoscitur, et interventu boni nuptialis 
ignoscitur, ait Apostolus, Secundum veniam dico, non secundum 
inupertum. 

De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, lib. i. 6. 11.7 


Quoniam sane non tantum fecunditas, cujus fructus in prole est ; 
nec tantum pudicitia, cujus vinculum est fides ; verum etiam quoddam 
sacramentum nuptiarum commendatur fidelibus conjugatis, unde 
dicit Apostolus, Viri, diligite uxores vestras, sicut et Christus dilexit 
Ecclesiam ; hujus procul dubio sacramenti res est, ut mas et femina 
connubio copulati quamdiu vivunt inseparabiliter perseverent, nec 
liceat, excepta causa fornicationis, a conjuge conjugem dirimi. Hoe 
enim custoditur in Christo et Ecclesia, ut vivens cum vivente in 
aeternum nullo divortio separetur. Cujus sacramenti tanta observatio 
est in civitate Dei nostri, in monte sancto ejus, hoc est, in Ecclesia 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 433. 2 Ibid, tom, x. p. 420. 
5 


258 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Christi, quibusque fidelibus conjugatis, qui sine dubio membra sunt 
Christi, ut, cum filiorum procreandorum causa vel nubant feminae, 
vel ducantur uxores, nec sterilem conjugem fas sit relinquere, ut alia 
fecunda ducatur. Quod si quisquam fecerit, non lege hujus saeculi, 
ubi interveniente repudio sine crimine conceditur cum aliis alia 
copulare connubia; quod etiam sanctum Moysen Dominus propter 
duritiam cordis illorum, Israelitis permisisse testatur: sed lege 
Evangelii reus est adulterii; sicut etiam illa si alteri nupserit. Usque 
adeo manent inter viventes semel inita jura nuptiarum, ut potius sint 
inter se conjuges qui ab alterutro separati sunt, quam cum his quibus 
aliis adhaeserunt. Cum aliis quippe adulteri non essent, nisi ad 
alterutrum conjuges permanerent. Denique mortuo viro cum quo 
verum connubium fuit, fieri verum connubium potest cum quo prius 
adulterium fuit. Ita manet inter viventes quiddam conjugale, quod 
nec separatio, nec cum altero copulatio possit auferre. Manet autem 
ad noxam criminis, non ad vinculum foederis: sicut apostatae anima 
velut de conjugio Christi recedens, etiam fide perdita sacramentum 
fidei non amittit, quod lavacro regenerationis accepit. Redderetur 
enim procul dubio redeunti, si amisisset abscedens. Habet autem 
hoe qui recesserit ad cumulum supplici, non ad meritum praemii. 


De Conjugiis Adulterinis, lib. 1.1 

Caput Primum.—1l. In loco Pauli dissensus Pollentit et Augustini. 
An citra causam fornicationis discedere liceat conjugt sine nuptiis 
manere volentt. Prima quaestio est, frater dilectissime Pollenti, 
earum quas ad me scribens, tanquam consulendo tractasti, quod ait 
Apostolus, His autem qui sunt in conjugio praecipto, non ego, sed 
Dominus, mulierem a viro non discedere ; quod si discesserit, manere 
innuptam, aut viro suo reconciliarc: et vir uxorem non dimittat 
(1 Cor. vii. 10 et 11), utrum ita sit accipiendum, ut eam prohibuisse 
nubere intelligatur, quae sine causa fornicationis discessit a viro ; id 
enim sentis: an sicut ego sensi in eis libris quos ante plurimos annos 
de sermone evangelico scripsi, quem secundum Matthaeum habuit 
Salvator in monte, las innuptas manere praeceperit, quae a viris 
suis ea causa recesserint quae sola permissa est, id est, fornicationis. 
Videtur enim tibi tune a viro discedentem feminam nubere non 
debere, si nulla viri fornicatione compulsa discesserit. Nec attendis, 
si nullam vir ejus causam fornicationis habuerit, non eam discedentem 
manere innuptam, sed omnino discedere non debere. Nam utique 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 451. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 259 


cul praecipitur, ut si a viro discesserit innupta permaneat, non disce- 
dendi aufertur licentia, sed nubendi. Quod si ita est, datur ergo 
licentia feminis quae continentes esse voluerint, nullum maritorum 
exspectare consensum, ut quod dictum est, mulierem a viro non 
discedere, eis praeceptum esse videtur, quae possent eligere, non 
continentiam, sed tale divortium quod liceret eis in alorum nuptias 
convenire. Proinde dilexerint nullum desiderare concubitum, nullum 
fere connubium, licebit eis viros suos etiam sine ulla fornicationis 
causa relinquere, et innuptas secundum Apostolum permanere. Et 
viri similiter (quoniam par forma est in utrisque), si continentes esse 
voluerint, etiam uxoribus non consentientibus deserent eas, et sine 
ullis nuptiis permanebunt. Tunc enim eis, ut putas, alia conjugia 
liceret Inquirere, si fornicationis causa divortium nasceretur. Cum 
vero ista causa non est, superest, secundum id quod existimas, ut aut 
conjux non discedat a conjuge, aut si discesserit, sine conjugio 
maneat, aut ad pristinum conjugium revertatur. Nulla ergo exist- 
ente causa fornicationis, cuilibet conjugi licebit unum de tribus 
eligere: aut non discedere a conjuge; aut si discesserit, sic manere ; 
aut si non sic manserit, non alterum quaerere, sed priori se reddere. 
Caput II.—2. Non licere conjugi discedere nist ex fornicationis 
causa. Et ubi est quod idem Apostolus, nec ad tempus, ut vacetur 
orationi, nisi ex consensu, voluit conjuges carnali fraudare invicem 
debito? Quomodo salvum erit quod ait, Propter fornicationes 
autem unusquisque uxorem suam habeat, et unaquaeque virum suum 
habeat. Uzxort vir debitum reddat, similiter autem et uxor viro. 
Uxor non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed vir, similiter et vir non 
habet potestatem corporis sui, sed mulier (1 Cor. vii. 2-5)? Hoe 
quomodo verum erit, nisi quia nolente conjuge, non licet conjugi 
continere? Nam si licet mulieri sic dimittere virum, ut maneat 
innupta, non vir habet, sed ipsa sui corporis potestatem: quod etiam 
de viro intelligitur. Deinde cum dictum est, Quicuwmque dimiserit 
uxorem suam, excepta causa fornicationis, facit eam moechari (Matt. 
v. 32); quomodo dictum intellecturi sumus, nisi prohibitum esse 
homini dimittere uxorem, si nulla causa fornicationis exstiterit? Et 
dictum est quare, ne scilicet faciat eam moechari: utique ideo, quia 
etiamsi non ipsa dimiserit, sed dimissa fuerit, erit moecha, si nupserit. 
Caput III.—Locus Apostoli de muliere quae a viro fornicante dis- 
cedit, intelligendus. Propter hoc ergo tam magnum malum, non let 
homini dimittere uxorem, nisi ex causa fornicationis. Tunc enim non 
ipse dimittendo facit adulteram, sed dimittit adulteram, Quid si ergo 


5. 2 


260 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dicat, Dimitto quidem uxorem meam sine ulla causa fornicationis, sed 
continens permanebo? ideone dicemus eum impune fecisse quod fecit? 
Quis hoc dicere audebit, qui voluntatem Domini haec dicentis intelli- 
git? Quoniam nec continentiae causa dimitti conjugem voluit, qui 
solam causam fornicationis excepit. 

3. Redeamus igitur ad ipsa Apostoli verba dicentis, His autem 
gui sunt in conjugio praecipio, nun ego, sed Dominus, uxorem a viro 
non discedere ; quod si discesserit, manere innuptam ; et eum velut 
interrogemus, et tanquam praesentem quodam modo consulamus: 
Cur dixisti, Apostole, guod st discesserit, manere innuptam? Licetue 
discedere, an non licet? Si non licet, cur praecipis discedenti ut 
maneat innupta? Si autem licet, profecto est aliqua causa qua liceat. 
Haec autem inquisita non invenitur, nisi quam solam Salvator excepit, 
id est, causa fornicationis. Ac per hoe non praecepit Apostolus mul- 
erem, si discesserit, manere innuptam, nisi quae illa causa discedit a 
viro, qua sola ei licitum est discedere a viro. Ubi enim dicitur, 
Praecipio non discedere ; quod si discesserit, manere innuptam ,; absit 
ut contra hoc praeceptum faciat, quae sic discedit ut innupta perman- 
eat. Nisi ergo illa intelligatur cui licet discedere (non autem licet 
nisi viro fornicante), quomodo jubetur innupta, si discesserit, perman- 
ere? Quis est qui dicat: Si discesserit mulier a viro non fornicante, 
innupta permaneat, cum ei nisi a viro fornicante discedere omnino 
non liceat? Sensus itaque iste tuus quantum adversetur vinculo con- 
jugali, ubi Dominus nec continentiam voluit suscipi, nisi pari con- 
cordique consensu, puto quod jam intelligas, 


Caput LV.—4. Apostolus male intellectus de muliere ob continentiae 
placitum discedente. Sed rem ipsam paulo apertius proloquamur, et 
quasi constituamus ante oculos. Ecce placuit continentia mulieri, 
viro non placuit: discessit ab eo muler, et coepit vivere continenter, 
ipsa scilicet casta mansura, sed factura, quod Dominus non vult, 
adulterum virum; qui cum se non continuerit, alteram quaeret. Quid 
sumus dicturi mulieri, nisi quod dicit Ecclesiae sana doctrina? Redde 
debitum viro, ne dum tu quaeris unde amplius honoreris, ille unde 
ille damnetur inveniat. Hoc enim et illi diceremus, si te nolente 
continere voluisset. Non enim habes potestatem corporis tui, sed 
ille: sicut nec ille habet potestatem corporis sui, sed tu. Nolite 
invicem fraudare, nisi ex consensu. Cum haec atque hujusmodi 
plura quae ad hoc pertineant dixerimus, placetne tibi ut nobis 
mulier ex ista tua ratione respondeat? Ego Apostolum audio dicen- 
tem, Praecipio mulierem a viro non discedere ; quod si discessertt, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 261 


manere tnnuptam, aut viro suo reconciliari ; ecce discessi, nolo recon- 
ciliari viro, sed innupta permaneo, Non enim aut, Si discesserit, 
manere innuptam, donec viro suo reconcilietur; sed, manere, inquit, 
innuptam, aut viro reconciliart. Hoc, inquit, faciat, aut ilud: unum 
e duobus eligendum permisit; non autem in horum alterum compulit. 
Manere innupta eligo, ac sic praeceptum impleo, Corripe, argue, 
increpa, utere qua volueris severitate, si nupsero. 


Caput V.—5. Refutatur illa interpretatio Apostoli. Quid huic 
contradicam ; nisi, Apostolum non bene intelligis? Neque enim 1116 
praecepisset, si a viro discesserit, innuptam manere mulierem, nisi 
eam cui discedere licuisset, illa una videlicet causa, quae ibi propterea 
tacita est, quia notissima est, hoc est, fornicationis. Hane enim 
solam Deus magister excepit, cum de dimittenda loqueretur uxore ; 
deditque intelligi talem formam etiam in viro esse servandam; quo- 
niam non solum mulier non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed vir ; 
sed ; sed similiter et vir non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed 
mulier. Cum ergo tuum maritum arguere de fornicatione non possis, 
quomodo putas quod ab eo discedis non nubendo excusare, a quo tibi 
non licet omnino discedere? Cum haec a nobis mulier audierit, puto 
quod nolis eam sic respondere, ut dicat propterea se manere innup- 
tam, quia sine ulla viri fornicatione discessit ; nam ille fornicatus 
esset, non solum sibi discedere, verum etiam nubere licuisset. 


Caput VI.—6. Pollentii sententia, muliert ab adultero discendenti 
nuptias cum alio non esse praecepto vetitas, sed tantum propter oppro- 
brium vitandas. Nequaquam hoc illa diceret cum et ipse sis verecun- 
datus istam mulieribus dare licentiam. Dixisti enim: “Si vir ux- 
orem adulteram dimiserit, et aliam duxerit, mulier tantum oppro- 
brium habebit. Si autem mulier supra dicta causa virum dimiserit, 
et alii nupserit, non vir tantum, sed et mulier opprobrium habebit.” 
Cujus sententiae tuae rationem reddens: “ Dicent enim, inquis, eam 
ideo discessisse, ut alium virum sibi conjungeret, etsi talis forte fuerit 
qualis a quo discessit ; perquam facile enim viris est, in hoc morbi 
vitium irruere. Si autem et ipsum dimiserit, et alii nupserit, magis 
magisque dicent eam numerositatem virorum appetisse.” Hac reddita 
ratione concludis, et dicis: ‘‘His ergo pertractatis vel etiam discussis, 
oportet mulierem virum tolerare, aut innuptam manere.” Bonum 
plane dedisti consilium mulieribus, ut cum sciant sibi esse permissum, 
si adulteros viros dimiserint, aliis conjugari, non tamen faciant prop- 
ter opprobrium ; sed potius tolerent etiam adulteros viros, ne videan- 
tur hac occasione multis velle misceri, eo quod difficile sit ut non 


262 HOLY MATRIMONY 


talem inveniat mulier cui nubat, qualis fuerit quem dimisit, quoniam 
valde in hune morbum sunt proclives viri. Cum ergo nos dicimus 
etiam illi mulieri, quae virum fornicantem dimiserit, alteri nubere 
non licere, tu autem dicis licere quidem, sed non expedire: utrique 
procul dubio dicimus eam quae fornicantem virum dimittit, nubere 
non debere. Verum hoc interest, quod nos, quando conjuges ambo 
christiani sunt, mulieri, si a viro fornicante discesserit, dicimus non 
licere alteri nubere, a ὙΠῸ autem non fornicante non licere omnino 
discedere: tu vero dicis, si mulier a viro non fornicante discesserit, 
non ei licere alteri nubere, propter praeceptum; si autem a fornicante 
discesserit, non ei expedire nubere propter opprobrium. Muherem 
itaque non nupturam discedere a viro, sive fornicante, sive non forni- 
cante, permittis. 


Caput VIL—7. Praecipi ut innupta maneat etiam quae ab adultero 
discedit. Porro beatus Apostolus, imo per Apostolum Dominus, quia 
mulierem non permittit a viro non fornicante discedere ; restat ut 
eam prohibeat, si discesserit, nubere, quam permittit a fornicante 
discedere. De qua enim dicitur, Si a viro discesserit, non nubat; ea 
conditione discedere permittitur, ut non nubat. Si ergo elegerit non 
nubere, non est cur prohibeatur discedere. Sicut illa de qua dicitur, 
Si se non continet, nubat (1 Cor. vii. 9); hac utique conditione non 
continere permittitur, ut tamen nubat. Si ergo elegerit nubere, cogi 
non potest continere. Sicut ergo ista incontinens compellitur nubere, 
ut possit quod non continet non esse damnabile: sic a viro illa dis- 
cedens, innupta compellitur permanere, ut possit quod discedit non 
esse culpabile. Culpabiliter autem a viro non fornicante discedit, 
etiamsi innupta permanserit. [11ὰ ergo innupta manere praecipitur, 
si discesserit, quae a fornicante discedit. uae cum ita se habeant, 
si eo modo intellexerimus Apostolum, ut mulieribus dicamus, Ita 
nolite discedere a viris vestris etiam pudicis, ut si discedere volueritis, 
innuptae maneatis; omnes quibus placuerit continentia, etiam non 
consentientibus viris, existimabunt sibi licere discedere. Quod pro- 
cul dubio quia permittere non debemus, restat ut quod dictum est, sz 
discesscerit, manere innuptam, de illa dictum docere debeamus, cui 
licere discedere, non utique nisi a fornicante, didicimus. Ne si aliter 
docuerimus, obtentu continentiae perturbemus christiana conjugia, et 
contra misericordissimum Domini praeceptum dimissos a continenti- 
bus mulieribus incontinentes viros, vel a continentibus viris inconti- 
nentes mulieres in adulteria compellamus. 


Caput VIII.—8. Parem esse in ea re formam υἱγὶ et mulieris. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 263 


Illud ergo quod Dominus, non quidem in sermone ipso qui exponeba- 
tur a nobis, sed tamen alibi ait, Quicumque dimisertt uxorem suam, 
nist ex causa fornicationis, et aliam duxerit, moechatur (Matt. xix. 9), 
si hoe modo intelligendum est, ut quicumque causa fornicationis 
dimiserit et aliam duxerit, non moechetur; non videtur in hae causa 
par forma esse mariti et uxoris: quandoquidem mulier etiamsi causa 
fornicationis discesserit a viro et alii nupserit, moechatur ; vir autem 
si eadem causa uxorem dimiserit et aliam duxerit, non moechatur. 
At si par forma est in utroque, uterque moechatur, si se alteri juxerit, 
etiam cum se a fornicante disjunxerit. Parem vero esse formam in 
hac causa viri atque mulieris, ibi ostendit Apostolus (quod saepe com- 
memorandum est), ubi cum dixisset, Uxor non habet potestatem cor- 
ports sut, sed vir; adjecit atque ait, Similiter et vir non habet potesta- 
tem corporis sui, sed mulier. 

Caput IX.—9. Objectio Pollentwi ex loco Matthaet. Refellitur ex 
similt loco Jacobi. Peccata ignorantium. Ex Marco et Luca 
Matthaeus intelligendus. ‘Cur ergo, inquis, interposuit Dominus 
causam fornicationis, et non potius generaliter ait, Quicumque dimi- 
serit uxorem suam et aliam duxerit, moechatur; si et ille moechus 
est,! qui dimissa fornicante muliere alteram ducit?” Credo, quia 
1Ππὶ quod majus est, hoc Dominus commemorare? voluit. Majus 
enim adulterium esse quis negat, uxore non fornicante dimissa 
alteram ducere, quam si fornicantem quisque dimiserit, et tunc 
alteram duxerit? Non quia et hoc adulterium non est; sed quia 
minus est, ubi fornicante dimissa altera ducitur. Nam simili locu- 
tione usus etiam Apostolus Jacobus ait: Sczenti igitur bonum facere, 
et non facienti, peccatum est illi (Jacobi iv. 17). _Numquid ideo non 
peccatum est illi etiam qui nescit bonum facere, et ideo non facit? 
Utique peccatum est; sed hoc gravius, si etiam sciat et non faciat: 
nec illud ideo nullum, quia minus, Ut ergo eodem modo utrumque 
dicamus: sicut quicumque dimiserit uxorem, excepta causa fornica- 
tionis, et aliam duxerit, moechatur; ita quicumque scit bonum facere, 
et non facit, peccat. Sed quemadmodum hic recte dici non potest, 
Ergo si nescit, non peccat; sunt enim etiam peccata ignorantium, 
quamvis minora quam scientium: ita nec illic recte dici potest, Ergo 
si causa fornicationis dimiserit, et aliam duxerit, non moechatur; est 
enim moechatio eorum etiam, qui alias ducunt, relictis propter forni- 
cationem prioribus; sed utique minor quam eorum qui non propter 
fornicationem dimittunt, et alteras ducunt. Potest quippe, sicut dic- 


[*] MSS. sz e¢ lle moechatus est. [2] In MSS. commendare. 


264 HOLY MATRIMONY 


tum est, Scienti bonum facere, et non facienti, peccutum est illi; eodem 
modo et illud dici, Dimittenti uxorem sine causa fornicationis et 
aliam ducenti, moechatio est 111. Quemadmodum igitur si dixerimus, 
Quicumque mulierem a marito praeter causam fornicationis dimissam 
duxerit, moechatur, procul dubio verum dicimus; nec tamen ideo 
illum qui propter causam fornicationis dimissam duxerit, ab hoc 
crimine absolvimus, sed utrosque moechos esse minime dubitamus: 
ita eum qui praeter causam fornicationis uxorem dimiserit et aliam 
duxerit, moechum pronuntiamus; nec ideo tamen eum qui propter 
causam fornicationis dimiserit, et alteram duxerit, ab hujus peccati 
labe defendimus. Ambos enim, licet alterum altero gravius, moechos 
tamen esse cognoscimus. Neque enim quisquam ita est absurdus, ut 
moechum neget esse qui duxerit eam quam maritus propter causam 
fornicationis abjecit, cum moechum dicat eum qui duxerit eam quae 
praeter causam fornicationis abjecta est: sic ergo isti ambo sunt 
moechi. Unde cum dicimus, @uicumque mulierem praeter causam 
fornicationis a viro dimissam duxerit, moechatur; de uno quidem 
ipsorum dicimus, nec tamen ideo moechari negamus eum qui eam 
duxerit, quam propter causam fornicationis maritus dimiserit: ita 
cum ambo sint moechi, et ille scilicet qui dimiserit uxorem suam 
praeter causam fornicationis et aliam duxerit, et ille qui propter 
causam fornicationis uxore dimissa se alteri copulaverit; profecto 
quando de uno eorum legimus, non ita intelligere debemus, quasi 
ex hoe alter moechus negatus sit, quod alter expressus sit. 


10. Sed si hoc evangelista Matthaeus, quia expressa una specie 
alteram tacuit, facit ad intelhgendum difficile; numquid non alii 
generaliter idipsum ita complexi sunt, ut de utroque posset intelligi ? 
Nam secundum Marcum sic scriptum est: Qutcwmque dimiserit 
uxorem suam, et alteram duxerit, adulterium commitit super eam ; 
et st uxor dimiserit virum suum, ef ali nupserit, moechatur (Mare. 
x. 11] e¢ 12). Secundum Lucam sic: Omnis qui dimittit uxorem 
suam, et alteram ducit, moechatur , et qui dimissam a viro ducit, 
moechatur (Luc. xvi. 18). Qui ergo nos sumus, ut dicamus, Est 
qui moechatur, uxore sua dimissa alteram ducens, et est qui hoc 
faciens non moechatur, cum Evangelium dicat omnem moechari qui 
hoe facit? Proinde si quicumque hoc fecerit, id est, omnis qui hoc 
fecerit, ut uxore sua dimissa alteram ducat, moechatur; sine dubita- 
tione ibi sunt ambo, et qui praeter causam fornicationis, et qui propter 
causam fornicationis dimittit uxorem. Hoc est enim, Quicumque 
dimiserit: hoc est, Omnis qui dimittit. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 265 


Caput X.—11. Matthaei locus tractatus in libris quos legit Pollen- 
tius, quomodo habeat. Non autem (sicut nescio quare tibi visum est), 
cum Evangelii secundum Matthaeum verba proferrem, praetermisi 
quod scriptum est, οὐ aliam duxerit ; et sic dixi, moechatur: sed ea 
verba posui quae in sermone illo prolixo leguntur, quem Dominus 
habuit in monte. Hune enim tractandum susceperam, quae verba 
illic ita leguntur ut posui, id est, Quicumgue dimiserit uxorem suam, 
excepta causa fornicationis, fuctt eam moechari ,; et qui sulutam a viro 
duxerit, moechatur. Ubi etsi nonnulla exemplaria verbis diversis 
eumdem sensum habent interpretatum, non tamen ab eo quod in- 
telligitur discrepant. Alia quippe habent, Quicumque dimiserit : 
alia, Omnis qui dimiserit. Itemque alia, exceptu causa fornicationis : 
alia, praeter causam fornicationis; alia, nisi ob causam fornicationis, 
Item alia, qui solutam a viro duxerit, moechatur : alia, gui dimissam 
a viro duxerit, moechatur. Ubi puto quod videas nihil interesse ad 
unam eamdemque sententiam. Quamvis illud ultimum, id est, qui 
dimissam a viro duxerit, moechatur ; in eo sermone quem Dominus 
fecit in monte, nonnulli codices et graeci et latini non habeant. 
Credo propterea, quia et ibi explicatus hic sensus putari potuit, in eo 
quod superius dictum est, facit eam moechart. ©uomodo enim 
dimissa fit moecha, nisi fiat qui eam duxerit moechus 4 


Carut XL—12. Alius Matthaei locus subobscurus, sed ab evange- 
listis aliis explanatus. Verba vero quae ipse posuisti, unde tibi 
visum est non moechari eum qui propter causam fornicationis uxorem 
dimiserit et aliam duxerit, obscure quidem posita sunt. Unde non 
miror in eis intelligendis laborare lectorem: sed non sunt in eo 
sermone Domini, qui tune a me tractabatur, quando illa conscripsi, 
quae cum legeres te moverunt. Alibi quippe idem Matthaeus ea 
Dominum dixisse narravit, non cum illum prolixum faceret in monte 
sermonem, sed cum interrogatus esset a Pharisaeis utrum liceret ex 
quacumque causa dimittere uxorem. Sec quod minus intelligitur 
apud Matthaeum, apud alios evangelistas intelligi potest. Quapropter 
cum legerimus in Evangelio secundum Matthaeum, Qutewmque di- 
miserit uxorem nisi ob fornicationem, aut quod magis in graeco 
legitur, praeter causam fornicationis, et aliam duaxerit, moechatur : 
non debemus continuo putare iUlum non moechari, qui propter 
causam fornicationis dimiserit, et aliam duxerit; sed adhuc ambi- 
gere, donec Evangelium secundum alios evangelistas a quibus hoc 
narratum est, consulamus. Quid si enim secundum Matthaeum, non 
quidem quod ad hance rem pertinet dictum est totum, sed ita pars 


266 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dicta est, ut intelligeretur a parte totum, quod tanquam explanantes 
Marcus et Lucas, ut clareret plena sententia, totum dicere maluerunt ἕ 
Cum itaque primum non dubitantes verum esse quod apud Matthaeum 
legitur, Quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam propter causam fornica- 
tionis, et aliam duxerit, moechatur ; quaesierimus utrum tantum iste 
moechetur ducendo alteram uxorem, qui praeter causam fornicationis 
priorem dimiserit, an omnis qui dimissa uxore alteram duxerit, ut ibi 
sit etiam ille qui fornicantem dimiserit: nonne secundum Marcum 
respondebitur nobis, Quid quaeritis utrum ille sit moechus, et ille 
non sit? Quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam, et aliam duxerit, adul- 
terium committit. Nonne etiam secundum Lueam dicetur nobis, 
Quid ambigitis utrum ille qui propter causam fornicationis uxorem 
dimiserit, et aliam duxerit, non moechetur? Omnis qut dimittit 
uxorem suam, et ducit alteram, moechatur. Ac per hoc, quoniam fas 
non est ut Evangelistas, quamvis diversis verbis de una re loquentes, 
ab uno sensu eademque sententia dissentire dicamus; restat ut 
Matthaeum intelligamus a parte totum significare voluisse, eamdem 
tamen tenuisse sententiam, ut dimittens uxorem et alteram ducens, 
non quidam moechetur, id est, qui praeter fornicationem dimiserit, 
quidam vero non moechetur, id est, qui propter fornicationem di- 
miserit, sed omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam, et ducit alteram, 
moechari minime dubitetur. 


Caput XII.—13. Mulier ob fornicationem dimissa non cessat esse 
uxor ejus qui dimisit. Nam et illud quod etiam secundum Lucam 
sequitur, Que dimissam a viro ducit, moechatur, quomodo est verum % 
(uomodo moechatur, nisi quia illa quam duxit, eo vivente a quo 
dimissa est, adhue uxor aliena est? Si enim jam suae, non alienae 
miscetur uxori, utique non moechatur: moechatur autem; aliena est 
ergo cul miscetur. Porro si aliena est, hoc est, ejus a quo dimissa 
est; etiamsi propter fornicationis causam dimissa est, nondum dimit- 
tentis uxor esse cessavit. Si autem illius esse cessavit, jam hujus 
est cul alteri nupsit: et si hujus est, non moechus judicandus est, sed 
maritus. Sed quia non eum maritum dicit Scriptura, sed moechum : 
adhue illa illius est, a quo etiam causa fornicationis abjecta est. Et 
ideo quamcumque etiam ipse illa dimissa ducit uxorem, quia cum 
alieno marito concumbit, adultera est. Unde autem fieri potest ut 
adulter etiam ipse non sit, cum constet adulterare quam duxit 2 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 267 


LIBER SECUNDUS. 


Caput Primum.—l. Hujus libri occasio, Ad ea quae mihi 
scripseras, frater religiose Pollenti, jam rescripseram non parvum 
volumen, de lis qui viventibus conjugibus suis aliis copulantur. Quod 
cum innotuisset Dilectioni tuae, addidisti aliqua ad libellum tuum, 
etiam his me respondere desiderans: sed cum facere disponerem, 
addendo et ego ad meum, ita ut unus liber esset etiam responsionis 
meae, repente illud editum est quod absolveram prius, flagitantibus 
fratribus, et nescientibus! quod adhue aliquid esset addendum. Hine 
factum est ut altero seorsum opusculo, ad ea quae addidisti, respon- 
dere compellerer. Non autem quae addidisti, adjuncta sunt fini 
opuseuli tui; sed visum est, ejus interjecta sunt corpori. 


Caput II.—2. Pollentit sententia, nubere alteri vetitum esse conjugt, 
sia non fornicante, non autem si a fornicante discesserit. Mortuum 
in loco Pauli intelligendum etiam fornicantem sentit, Horum primum 
illud est, cui quidem arbitror me respondere debere, quod in his 
Apostoli verbis, ubi ait, Caeteris autem ego dico, non Dominus, 
mulierem a viro non discedere , quod st discesserit, manere innuptam, 
aut viro suo reconciliart, non putas ita dictum esse, si discesserit, ut a 
viro fornicante discessisse intelligatur, qua sola causa discedere 
licitum est; sed potius existimas a pudico, et ideo jussam manere 
innuptam, ut posset ei reconciliari, si continere ille noluisset, ne 
virum ad fornicandum, id est, ad aliam se vivente ducendam, ipsa 
non reconciliata compelleret. Caeterum si a viro fornicante dis- 
cesserit, putas ei non praecipi ut innupta permaneat: sed hoc eam 
facere, si continens esse voluerit; non ut praecepti violatrix in- 
veniatur esse, si nupserit. Quae tibi videtur forma et a viro esse 
servanda, ut uxorem non dimittat excepta causa fornicationis ; si 
autem dimiserit, maneat sine conjugio, ut pudicae reconciliari possit 
uxori, nisi forte continentiam illa delegerit ; ne uxoris castae recon- 
ciliationem refugiens, ipse illam cogat moechari, si sese non continens 
vivente illo nupserit alteri: si autem fuerit ab uxore fornicante 
disjunctus, jam eum nullo praecepto ut se contineat detineri, nec 
omnino moechari, si viva illa alteram duxerit: quoniam id quod ait 
idem apostolus, Mudlier alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit » quod se 
mortuus fuerit vir ejus, Liberata est ; cut vult nubat (1 Cor. vii. 10, 


[1 Editi, flagitantibus fratribus nostris et nescientibus. At MSS. vocem, 
nostris, collocant post et nescientibus; ut in his quidem domesticos et con- 
victores, in flagitantibus fratribus vero extraneos intelligamus. 


268 HOLY MATRIMONY 


11, 39); sic intelligendum existimas, ut si vir fuerit fornicatus, pro 
mortuo deputetur, et uxor pro mortua; et ideo liceat cuilibet illorum, 
tanquam post mortem, ita post fornicationem conjugis alteri copulari. 


Caput III.—3. Refellitur Pollentius. Quibus tuis sensibus con- 
sideratis, abs te quaero, utrum quicumque duxerit mulierem quae 
viro alligata esse destiterit adulter habendus sit? Quod tibi existimo 
non videri. Ideo enim mulier vwivente viro vocabitur adultera, 81 
fuerit cum alio viro; quoniam alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit. 
Hoc autem vinculum si ei cum viro vivente non esset, sine ullo 
adulterii crimine alteri nuberet. Proinde si alligata est quamdiu vir 
ejus vivit, nullo modo nisi viro mortuo soluta dicenda est ab hoc 
vineulo. Porro si morte cujuslibet eorum inter maritum et uxorem 
hoe vinculum solvitur, et pro morte habenda est, sicut dicis, etiam 
fornicatio, procul dubio erit ab hoc et mulier soluta, quando fuerit 
fornicata. Neque enim dici poterit haec alligata viro, quando ab 
illa fuerit vir solutus. Ac per hoe posteaquam fornicando alligata 
viro esse destiterit, quisquis eam duxerit, adulter non erit. 


Caput 1V.—Fornicationem pro morte conjugale vinculum solvente 
deputare, quam absurdum. Et vide quam sit absurdum, ut ideo non 
sit adulter, quia duxit adulteram. Imo vero, quod est monstruosius, 
nec ipsa mulier erit adultera: quoniam non erit posteriori viro uxor 
aliena, sed sua. Soluto enim per adulterium priore conjugali vinculo, 
cuicumque jam nupserit conjugem non habenti, non adultera cum 
adultero, sed uxor erit potius cum marito. Quomodo ergo erit verum, 
Mulier alligata est, quumdiu vir ejus vivit? Ecce vir ejus vivit, quia 
nec de corpore excessit, nec fornicatus est, quod pro morte vis 
deputari; et tamen ei mulier alligata jam non est. Nonne attendis 
quam sit hoc contra Apostolum dicentem, Mulder alligata est, quamdiu 
vir ejus vivit 2 An forte dicturus es: Vivit quidem, sed vir ejus jam 
non est: quoniam tune esse destitit, quando illa per adulterium con- 
jugale vinculum solvit ? Quomodo igitur vivente viro vocabitur adultera, 
δὲ fuerit cum alio viro ; quandoquidem vir ejus ille jam non est, 
conjugali vinculo per mulieris adulterium jam soluto? Quo enim 
vivente viro, nisi suo, vocabitur adultera, si fuerit cum alio viro? At 
si vir ejus esse 1110 jam destitit; non utique vivente viro vocabitur 
adultera, si fuerit cum alio viro; sed nullum habens virum nubendo 
erit cum suo viro. Hoe qui sentit, nonne cernis quam contra Apos- 
tolum sentiat? Quod quidem non ipse sentis, sed hoe sequitur illa 
quae sentis. Muta ergo antecedentia, si vis cavere sequentia; et noli 
dicere, mortuum virum vel mortuam uxorem hoc loco debere intelligi 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 269 


etiam fornicantem. Quamobrem secundum doctrinam sanam Mulder 
alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit ; id est, nondum e corpore abscessit. 
Mulier enim sub viro, vivo marito, juncta est legi ; hoc est, in corpore 
constituto. Δὲ autem mortuus fuerit, hoc est, in corpore exierit, 
evacuata est a lege viri. Igitur vivente viro, vocabitur adultera, si 
fuerit cum alio viro. St autem mortuus fuerit vir ejus, liberata est a 
lege,| ut non sit adultera, si fuertt cum alio viro. (Rom. vii. 2, 3.) 
Haec verba Apostoli toties repetita, toties inculcata, vera sunt, viva 
sunt, sana sunt, plena sunt. Nullius viri posterioris mulier uxor esse 
incipit, nisi prioris esse desiverit. Esse autem desinet uxor prioris, 
si moriatur vir ejus; non si fornicetur. Licite itaque dimittitur 
conjux ob causam fornicationis ; sed manet vinculum prioris, propter 
quod fit reus adulterii, qui dimissam duxerit etiam ob causam forni- 
cationis. 

Caput V.—Conjugit vinculum morte resolvi, non autem fornicatione 
et separatione conjugum. Sicut enim manente in se Sacramento 
regenerationis, excommunicatur cujusquam reus criminis, nec illo 
Sacramento caret, etiamsi nunquam reconcilietur Deo: ita manente 
in se vinculo foederis conjugalis, uxor dimittitur ob causam forni- 
cationis, nec carebit illo vinculo etiamsi nunquam reconcilietur viro ; 
carebit autem, si mortuus fuerit vir ejus. Reus vero excommuni- 
catus ideo nunquam carebit regenerationis Sacramento, etiam non 
reconciliatus, quoniam nunquam moritur Deus. Remanet itaque ut, 
si sapere secundum Apostolum volumus, non dicamus virum adul- 
terum pro mortuo deputandum, et ideo licere uxori ejus alteri nubere. 
Q@uamvis enim sit mors adulterium, non corporis, sed quod pejus est, 
animae: non tamen et de ista? morte loquebatur Apostolus, cum 
dicebat, Quod si mortuus fuertt vir ejus, cut vult nubat ; sed de illa 
sola qua de corpore exitur. Quoniam si per conjugis adulterium con- 
jugale solvitur vinculum sequitur illa perversitas, quam cavendam 
esse monstravi, ut et mulier per impudicitiam solvatur hoc vinculo: 
quae si solvitur, libera erit a lege viri; et ideo, quod insipientissime 
dicitur, non erit adultera si fuerit cum alio viro, quia per adulterium 
liberata est a priore viro. Quod si ita est a veritate devium, ut 
nullus id, non dico christianus, sed humanus sensus admittat ; pro- 
fecto mulier alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit: quod ut apertius 
dicam, quamdiu vir ejus in corpore est. Pari ergo forma et vir 
alligatus est, quamdiu mulier ejus in corpore est. Unde si vult 





[1 Editi, liberata est a lege virt, vox, virt, hoc loco non repetitur in MSS. 
[2] Sic codices, At editi, non tamen de ista. 


270 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dimittere adulteram, non ducat alteram, ne’ quod in illa culpat, ipse 
committat. Similiter et mulier, si dimittit adulterum, non sibi 
copulet alterum: alligata est enim, quamdiu vir ejus vivit; nec a 
lege viri nisi mortui liberatur, ut non sit adultera, si fuerit cum alio 
viro. 

Caput VI.—5. Reconciliatio post adulterium cum conjuge resi- 
piscente quam conveniens christiano. Quod autem tibi durum 
videtur, ut post adulterium reconcilietur conjugi conjux; si fides 
adsit, non erit durum. Cur enim adhue deputamus adulteros, quos 
vel Baptismate ablutos, vel poenitentia credimus esse sanatos? Haec 
crimina in vetere Dei lege nullis sacrificiis mundabantur, quae Novi 
Testamenti sanguine sine dubitatione mundantur!; et ideo tune omni 
modo prohibitum est ab alio contaminatam viro recipere uxorem ; 
quamvis David Saiilis filiam, quam pater ejusdem mulieris ab eo 
separatam dederat alteri, tanquam Novi Testamenti praefigurator sine 
cunctatione receperit (2 Reg. ii, 14): nune autem posteaqguam 
Christus ait adulterae, Nec ego te damnabo, vade, deinceps noli 
peccare ; quis non intelligat debere ignoscere maritum, quod videt 
ignovisse Dominum amborum, nec jam se debere adulteram dicere, 
cujus poenitentis crimen divina credit miseratione deletum ? 

Caput VII.—6. Mariti saevientes in uxores adulteras, cum sint 
et ipst adultert. Sed hoc videlicet infidelium sensus exhorret, ita ut 
nonnulli modicae fidei vel potius inimici verae fidei, credo metuentes 
peccandi impunitatem dari muheribus suis, illud quod de adulterae 
indulgentia Dominus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis: quasi per- 
missionem peccandi tribuerit qui dixit, Jam deinceps noli peccare ; 
aut ideo non debuerit mulier a medico Deo illius peccati remissione 
sanari, ne offenderentur insani. Neque enim quibus illud factum 
Domini displicet, ipsi pudici sunt et eos severos castitas facit: sed 
potius ex illo sunt hominum numero, quibus Dominus ait, Qui sine 
peccato est vestrum, prior in eam lapidem jaciat. Nisi quod illi con- 
scientia territi recesserunt, et tentare Christum atque adulteram 
persequi destiterunt (Joan. viii. 7-11): isti autem et aegroti medicum 
reprehendunt, et in adulteras adulteri saeviunt: quibus si diceretur, 
non quod illi audierunt, Quz sine peccato est; quis enim sine peccato ἢ 
sed, Qui sine isto peccato est, prior in wlam lapidem mittat ; tum 
vero forsitan cogitarent, qui indignabantur quod adulturam non occi- 
derent, quanta illis Dei misericordia parceretur, ut adulteri viverent. 





['] Sic editio Er. nostris ibi plerisque ac melioribus MSS. consentiens. At 
Loy., quae Novi Testamentis sanguine Christi sine dubitatione mundantur. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 271 


Caput VIIL—%. Viri adulteri gravius puniendi quam adulterae 
uxores, Lex Antonini, viros tmpudicos aeque ac mulieres damnari 
volentis. Virorum impudicitia pejor. Sed cum haec eis dicimus, 
non solum nihil volunt detrahere severitati; sed irascuntur insuper 
veritati, et loquuntur atque respondent: Sed nos viri sumus; an 
vero sexus nostri dignitas hance sustinebit injuriam, ut cum aliis 
feminis praeter uxores nostras si quid admittimus, in luendis poenis 
muleribus comparemur? Quasi non propterea magis debeant illicitas 
concupiscentias viriliter frenare, quia viri sunt? quasi non propterea 
magis debeant mulieribus suis ad virtutis hujus exemplum se 
praebere, quia viri sunt? quasi non propterea minus debeant a 
libidine superari, quia viri sunt? quasi non propterea minus debeant 
lascivienti carni servire, quia viri sunt? Et tamen indignantur, si 
audiant adulteros viros pendere similes adulteris feminis poenas ; 
cum tanto gravius eos puniri oportuerit, quanto magis ad eos pertinet 
et virtute vincere, et exemplo regere feminas. Christianis equidem 
loquor, qui fideliter audiunt, Caput mulieris vir (Ephes. v. 33): 
ubi se agnoscunt duces, illas autem comites esse debere; et ideo 
cavendum viro illac ire vivendo, qua timet ne uxor sequatur 
imitando. Sed isti quibus displicet ut inter virum et uxorem par 
pudicitiae forma servetur, et potius eligunt, maximeque in hac causa, 
mundi legibus subditi esse quam Christi, quoniam jura forensia non 
eisdem quibus feminas pudicitiae nexibus viros videntur obstringere ; 
legant quid imperator Antoninus,! non utique christianus, de hac re 
constituerit, ubi maritus uxorem de adulterli crimine accusare non 
sinitur, cui moribus suis non praebuit castitatis exemplum, ita ut 
ambo damnentur, si ambo pariter impudicos confictus ipse convicerit. 
Nam supra dicti imperatoris haec verba sunt, quae apud Gregorianum 
leguntur: Sane, inquit, meae litterae nulla parte causae praejudica- 
bunt. Neque enim st penes te culpa fuit ut matrimonium solveretur, 
et secundum legem Juliam Hupasia uxor tua nuberet, propiter hoc 
rescriptum meum adulterii damnata erit, nisi constet esse commissum. 
Habebunt autem ante oculos hoc inquirere, an cum tu pudice viveres, 
alli quoque bonos mores colendi auctor fuisti. Periniquum enim mihi 
videtur esse ut pudicitiam vir ab uxore exigat, quam tpse non exhibet : 
quae res potest et virum damnare, non ob compensationem mutur 
criminis rem winter utrumque componere, vel causam factr tollere. 
Si haec observanda sunt propter decus terrenae civitatis; quanto 
castiores quaerit coelestis patria et societas Angelorum? Quae cum 


[1 Editio Erasmiana, Antonius; male et refragantibus omnibus MSS. 


7 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ita sint, numquid ideo minor est, ac non potius major et pejor 
virorum impudicitia, quia inest illis superba et licentiosa jactantia ? 
Non igitur exhorreant viri quod adulterae Christus ignovit; sed 
potius cognoscant etiam periculum suum, et simili morbo laborantes 
ad eumdem Salvatorem supplici pietate confugiant ; et quod in illa 
factum legunt, etiam sibi necessarium esse fateantur, adulteriorum 
suorum medicinam suscipiant, adulterare jam desinant, laudent in se 
Dei patientiam, agant poenitentiam, sumant indulgentiam, mutent 
de poena feminarum et de sua impunitate sententiam. 


Caput IX.—8. Wolens reconciliart adulterae uxori non potest 
alteri nubere. Quibus consideratis atque tractatis, si communis 
conditio, commune malum, commune periculum, commune vulnus, 
communis salus fideliter et humiliter cogitetur; non erit turpis, 
neque difficilis, etiam post perpetrata atque purgata adulteria, recon- 
ciliatio conjugum, ubi per claves regni coelorum non dubitatur fieri 
remissio peccatorum: non ut post viri divortium adultera revocetur, 
sed ut post Christi consortium adultera non vocetur. Verum ecce 
non fiat, nemo compellit, quia forte lex aliqua hujus saeculi vetat 
secundum terrenae civitatis modum, ubi cogitata non est abolitio 
criminum per sanguinem sanctum. Suscipiatur ergo continentia, 
quam nulla lex prohibet; in alia non eatur adulteria. Et quid ad 
nos, si nec saltem divina miseratione mundata marito reconcilietur! 
adultera, dum tamen non reconciliatis adulteris, non alia fiant quasi 
connubia, quae convincuntur esse adulteria? Mulier enim alligata 
est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit. (1 Cor. vii. 39.) Ergo consequenter et 
vir alligatus est, quamdiu mulier ejus vivit. Haee alligatio facit 
ut aliis conjungi sine adulterina copulatione non possint. Unde 
necesse est ex duobus conjugibus quatuor adulteros fieri, si et illa 
alteri nupserit, et ille alteram duxerit.2 Quamvis enim sceleratius 
moechetur, qui non causa fornicationis uxore dismissa alteram ducit: 
quod genus adulterii commemoravit Matthaeus: tamen non solum 
ipse moechatur, sed, sicuti est apud Marcum, Quicumque dimiserit 
uxorem suam et aliam duxerit, adulterium committit super eam ; et 
st uxor dimiserit virum et alii nupserit, moechatur (Mare. x. 12 et 13); 
et sicuti est apud Lucam, Omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam, et ducit 
alteram, moechatur ; et qui dimissam a viro duxerit, moechatur. 
(Luc. xvi. 18.) De quibus testimoniis jam satis in libro superiore 
disserul. 





[1] Editi, reconcilietur a Deo. At MSS. non addunt, a Deo. 
[?] Sola edito Lov. si οὐ tlla adultero nupserit, et ille adulteram duxerit. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 213 


Carut X.—9. Incontinentium querelas adversus legem Christi 
vetantis alteri nubere dimissa adulteru, frustra objectart. St incon- 
tinentium querelae admittantur, permittenda adulteria in multis 
casibus. Justior videbitur querela mulierts praeter fornicationem 
dimissae et nubere alteri cupientis. Sed respondes mihi: ‘“ Conti- 
nenter vivere paucorum est; et ideo qui fornicantes conjuges 
dimiserunt, quoniam non possunt reconciliari, tantum se vident 
periclitari, ut legem Christi non humanam, sed feralem, pronuntient.” 
Ο frater, quantum ad incontinentes pertinet, multas querelas habere 
possunt, quibus, ut dicis, legem Christi feralem pronuntient, non 
humanam. Et tamen non propter illos Evangelium Christi pervertere, 
vel mutare debemus. Te quippe sola eorum querela permoveret, qui 
conjuges causa fornicationis intercedente dimittunt, si alias ducere 
non sinantur: quoniam continere paucorum est, atque ad id debent 
laude adhortari, non lege compelli. Itaque si dimissa adultera non 
ducitur altera, justam querelam, sicut putas, habebit hominum 
incontinentia. Sed attende quam plura sunt, ubi si querelas incon- 
tinentium velimus admittere, necesse nobis erit adulteria facienda 
permittere.t Quid si enim aliquo diuturno et insanabili morbo 
corporis teneatur conjux, quo concubitus impeditur? quid, si capti- 
vitas, vel vis aliqua separet, ita ut sciat vivere maritus uxorem, cujus 
sibi copia denegatur? censesne admittenda incontinentium murmura, 
et permittenda adulteria? Quid in hoc ipso unde interrogatus est 
Dominus, responditque fieri non debere, sed ad duritiam cordis 
illorum Moysen permisisse dari libellum repudi, et quacumque causa 
dimittere conjugem ? nonne lex Christi incontinentibus displicet, qui 
uxores litigiosas, injuriosas, imperiosas, fastidiosas, et ad reddendum 
debitum conjugale difficillimas, repudio interposito abjicere volunt, 
et alteras ducere? Jam ergo, quia istorum incontinentia legem 
Christi horruit, ad eorum lex Christi arbitrium commutanda est ἢ 

10. Jam porro si maritum relinquat uxor, vel maritus uxorem, non 
causa fornicationis, sed potius continentiae, sitque incontinens cui 
repudium propter hoc datur; quaero utrum non erit adulter vel 
adultera, si alteri copuletur? Si, Non erit, dicitur; Domino con- 
tradicitur, cujus haec verba sunt: Dictum est autem, Qurcumque 
dimiserit uxorem suam, det illi libellum repudii. Ego autem dico 
vobis quia omnis qui dimiserit uxorem suam, excepta causa forni- 
cationis, facit eam moechari,; et qui dimissam duxerit, adulterat. 
(Matth. v. 31 et 32.) Ecce dimissa est; non dimisit; et quia con- 


[1] Sola editio Lov. adulteria fienda permittere. 
fe 





Dia: HOLY MATRIMONY 


tinere paucorum est continentiae cessit et nupsit; et tamen adulter 
adulteram duxit. Ambo rei, ambo damnandi sunt; et quae nupsit 
viro marito, et qui duxit eam cujus vivit maritus. Numquid hic 
legem Christi dicimus inhumanam, qua constituitur rea tanti criminis 
atque punitur, quam vir nulla ejus praecedente fornicatione dimisit, 
et quia paucorum est continere, dimittendo compulit nubere? Cur 
non hic dicimus habendum esse pro mutuo, qui male dimittendo 
prior conjugale vinculum rupit? Nam qua ratione dicturus es eum 
rupisse vinculum conjugale, qui licet sit moechus, non dimisit ux- 
orem; et eum non rupisse qui etiam castam dimisit uxorem? 
Ego autem dico in utroque manere hoc vinculum, quo mulher 
alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit, sive continens, sive moechus: et 
ideo moechari eam quae dimissa nupserit, et moechari eum qui 
dimissam duxerit, sive a moecho, sive a continente dimissa sit: 
quoniam mulier alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit. Sed nune de 
querelis incontinentium disputamus. Quid enim videtur justius 
hujus mulieris querela, quae dicit: Dimissa sum, non dimisi; et 
quoniam continere paucorum est, non me continui, ne fornicarer 
nupsi; et dicor moechata, quia nupsi? Numquid propter hujus 
quasi justam querelam, legem censebimus mutandam esse divinam, 
ut istam non judicemus adulteram? Absit. Sed respondebis non 
eam debuisse dimitti, quia fornicationis nulla causa _praecesserat. 
Verum dicis: nam peccatum mariti ejus Dominus expressit, ubi ait, 
Qui dimisertt uxorem suam, excepta causa fornicationis, facit eam 
moechart. Sed numquid ista ideo nubendo postea non peccavit, quia 
prius dimittendo ille peccavit? Quid ergo ei prodest, quod de lege 
Christi mulier incontinens queritur, nisi ut murmurans puniatur ? 


Carut XI.—11. Objectio alia Pollentit ut saltem filiorum gignen- 
dorum causa licet alteram ducere dimissa adultera. Jam nunc etiam 
illa videamus quae alio loco interponens addidisti, neque ad ea 
respondere voluisti: ubi te movet, et miseraris hominem qui cubare 
cum adultera, etiamsi non incontinentia, certe filiorum procreand- 
orum necessitate compellitur, si non ei licet sic eam dimittere, ut ea 
vivente alteram ducat. Unde recte movereris, si adulterium non 
esset, quamvis adultera viva uxore, alteram ducere. Si autem adul- 
terium est, ut ea quae sunt disputata docuerunt, quid obtenditur 
procreandorum causa filiorum? Non enim propterea flagitiorum est 
permittenda licentia: aut vero! tam cavendum est sine posteris mori, 
quam eligendum in posterum vivere? quod non sinentur adulteri, 


["] Lov. aut vivo. Caeteri Codices, aut vero. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 275 


quos necesse est post primam mortem secundae mortis aeternitate 
damnari. Nam procreandorum filiorum ista causatio, etiam non 
adulteras, sed castissimas feminas, si forte sint steriles, cogit dimitti, 
et alteras πο]: quod tibi existimo non placere, 

12. Quapropter si causa incontinentiae non sunt excusanda adul- 
teria, quanto minus excusantur procreandorum causa filiorum ? 

Caput XIIl.—Nuptias hoc tempore filiorum causa tis tantum 
eligendas esse, qui se continere non possunt. Illi quippe infirmitati, 
hoc est, incontinentiae voluit Apostolus subveniri, honestate nupti- 
arum. Non enim ait, Si filios non habet, nubat: sed, Sz se non 
continet, nubat. (1 Cor. vii. 9.)  Filiorum quidem propagine com- 
pensatur quod incontinentiae nubendo ceditur. Nam utique incon- 
tinentia vitium est, conjugium autem non est vitium ; et ideo fit per 
hoe bonum, ut ilud veniale sit malum. Cum sint ergo nuptiae 
causa generandi institutae, ea causa fiebant a Patribus, qui tantum 
officio generandi feminis, sed non illicite, miscebantur. Erat enim 
tune quaedam propagandi necessitas, quae nunc non est: quoniam 
tempus amplectendi, sicut scriptum est, quod utique tune fuit; e¢ 
tempus continendi ab amplexu (Kccles. 111. 5), quod nune est. De 
quo tempore Apostolus loquens ait: De caetero, fratres, tempus breve 
est ; reliquum est ut et qui habent uxores, tanquam non habentes sint. 
(1 Cor. vii. 29.) Unde nune rectissime dicitur, Qui potest cupere, 
capiat (Matth. xix. 12): qui autem se non continet, nubat. Tune 
ergo etiam continentia propter propagationem filiorum in nuptias 
descendebat officio!: nunc autem vinculum nuptiale incontinentiae 
subvenit vitio; ut ab eis qui se non continent, non per turpitudinem 
stuprorum, sed per honestatem conjugiorum, fiat propagatio filiorum., 
Cur ergo non dixit Apostolus, si filios non habet, nubat? Quia 
scilicet hoc tempore continendi ab amplexu, non est necesse filios 
propagare. Εὖ quare dixit, Sz se non continet, nubat?  Utique 
propterea, ne per incontinentiam? cogatur adulterare. Si ergo se 
continet, nec nubat, nec generet. Si autem se non continet, lite 
nubat, ne turpiter generet, aut turpius concumbendo non generet. 
Quanquam hoe quod ultimum dixi, nonnulli faciant etiam licite 
conjugati. Illicite namque et turpiter etiam cum legitima uxore 
concumbitur, ubi prolis conceptio devitatur. Quod faciebat Onan 
filius Judae, et occidit illum propter hoc Deus. (Gen. xxxviil. 8-10.) 
Propagatio itaque filiorum, ipsa est prima et naturalis et legitima 








[1] Germanensis MSS. in nuptiarum descendebat officicum. 
[?] Corbeiensis Codex, ne propter incontinentiam. 


ae 


276 HOLY MATRIMONY 


causa nuptiarum: ac per hoe qui propter incontinentiam conjun- 
gantur, non sic debent temperare malum suum, ut bonum exter- 
minent nuptiarum, id est, propaginem filiorum. De incontinentibus 
quippe loquebatur Apostolus, ubi ait: Volo igitur juntores nubere, 
filios procreare, matresfamilias esse, nullam occasionem dare adver- 
sario maledicti gratia. Jam enim conversae quaedam sunt retro post 
satanam. (1 Tim. v. 14 et 15.) Cum itaque dicebat, Volo juniores 
nubere ; hoe utique monebat propter ruinam incontinentiae fulci- 
endam. Sed ne forte ab eis sola carnalis concupiscentiae cogitaretur 
infirmitas, cui tantummodo esset corpore connubi serviendum, nupti- 
arum autem vel contemneretur vel negligeretur bonum; continuo 
subjunxit, jilios procreare, matresfamilias esse. Qui vero eligunt 
continere, aliquid utique melius eligunt quam est nuptiarum bonum, 
hoe est, generatio filorum. Unde si eligitur continentia, ut bono 
nuptiarum melius aliquid capessatur ; quanto potius custodienda est, 
ut adulterium caveatur? Cum enim dixisset Apostolus, Quod si se 
non continet, nubat: Melius est enim, inquit, nubere quam uri. 
(1 Cor. vii. 9.) Non dixit, Melius est moechari quam uri. 


Caput XIII.—13. Nolentes reconciliart conjugibus adulteris, con- 
tinentiam custodiant. Non est igitur ad quod exhortemur eos qui 
reconciliari timent conjugibus adulteris poenitendo sanatis, nisi ad 
custodiendam continentiam. Q@uoniam muler alligata quamdiu sive 
moechus sive castus vir ejus vivit, moechatur si alteri nupserit ; et vir 
alligatus quamdiu sive moecha sive casta uxor ejus vivit, moechatur si 
alteram duxerit. Haec namque alligatio quando quidem non solvitur, 
etiamsi per repudium conjux a casto conjuge! separetur ; multo minus 
solvitur, si non separata moechetur. Ac per hoc non eam solvit, nisi 
mors conjugis, non in adulterium corruentis, sed de corpore exeuntis. 
@uapropter si recesserit mulier ab adultero viro, et ei reconciliari non 
vult, maneat innupta; et si dimiserit vir adulteram mulierem, et eam 
non vult recipere nec post poenitentiam, custodiat continentiam : etsi 
non ex voluntate eligendi potioris boni, certe ex necessitate vitandi 
perniciosi mali. Ad hoc exhortarer, etiamsi uxor esset in languore 
insanabili atque diuturno, etiamsi alicubi esset corpore separata, quo 
maritus non posset accedere: postremo ad hoc exhortarer, etiamsi 
mulier volens vivere continenter, quamvis contra disciplinam, quia 
non ex consensu, tamen pudicum pudica dimitteret. Puto enim 
christianum neminem reluctari, adulterum esse qui vel diu languente, 


[1 Sic melioris notae MSS. At Loy. conjua a casta conjuge. Er. conjux 
casto corpore. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 277 


vel diu absente vel continenter vivere cupiente sua uxore, alteri 
commixtus est feminae. Sic ergo et dimissa adultera, adulter est 
cum altera; quoniam non ille, aut ille; sed, Omnis qui dimittit 
uxorem suam et ducit alteram, moechatur. (Luc. xvi. 8.) Qua- 
propter si a conjugali vinculo immunis minus appetitur vita sanc- 
torum, exhorreatur poena moechorum; et timore saltem frenetur 
concupiscentia, si amore non eligitur continentia. Si enim ubi est 
timor, operetur labor; ubi erat labor, erit et amor. Non enim 
confidendum est de nostris viribus ; sed oratio adjungenda conatibus, 
ut impleat bonis, qui deterret a malis. 


Caprut XIV.—14. Objectio alia, hac sententia excludi benignitatem, 
ut marite velint puniri adulteras, quibus mortuis ducere alias possint. 
Respondeamus etiam ad illud, ubi putas maritos ad puniendas adul- 
teras sine ulla miseratione compelli; cum volunt eas mori, si eis 
viventibus non licet eis alteras ducere. Quam crudelitatem volens 
exaggerare dixisti: Non mihi videtur, amantissime pater, hic divinus 
esse sensus, ubi benignitas et pietas excluditur. Ita istud dicis, quasi 
propterea mariti parcere debeant adulteris feminis, quia licet eis 
alteras ducere; ut si non licet, non parcant ut leeat. Quinimo 
propterea debent peccatricibus praebere misericordiam, ut et ipsi 
pro suis peccatis misericordiam consequantur. Et multo magis hoc 
eis faciendum est, qui dimissis uxoribus adulteris cupiunt vivere 
continenter. Tanto quippe debent esse misericordiores, quanto vo- 
lunt esse sanctiores: ut et ad castitatem in se ipsis servandam 
divinitus adjuventur, dum castitatem ab uxoribus violatam nec ipsi 
humanitus ulciscuntur. Et maxime vox illa dominica est eis in 
memoriam revocanda: Qu? sine peccato est, prior in illam lapidem 
jaciat. (Joan. viii. 7.) Non, Qui sine ipso peccato est, quoniam 
loquimur de pudicis viris!; sed, Qui sine peccato est: quod si esse se 
dixerint, se ipsos seducunt, et veritas in eis non est. (1 Joan. 1. 8.) 
Porro si non se seducunt, et est in eis veritas, non erit in eis cruenta 
severitas. Scientes enim se non esse sine peccato, dimittunt ut 
dimittatur eis; nec ab eis benignitas et pietas excluditur’. Magis 
enim haec excluduntur, si peccatis conjugum ab eis impetret veniam 
licentia libidinis, non cura pietatis; id est, ut propterea parcant quia 
licet eis alteras ducere, et non potius propterea quia volunt et sibi 
Dominum parcere. 


[1] Sic melius MSS. At editi, gwomodo loquimur de pudicis vircs. 
[2] Lov. ne ab eis benignitas excludatur. Caeteri vero codices, nec ab eis, 
etc., et ex his quidam habent excludantur ; alii cum Am, et Fr. excluditur. 


278 HOLY MATRIMONY 


15. Quanto itaque melius, et honestius, christiana denique pro- 
fessione dignius, ut parcant adulterarum sanguini uxorum, quod 
scriptum est eis dicimus, Dimitte injustitiam proximo tuo, et tunc 
precanti tibi peccata solventur. Homo homini conservat tram, et a 
Domino quaerit medelam? Super hominem similem sibi non habet 
misericordiam, et de peccatis suis deprecatur? Cum ipse caro sit, 
conservat iracundiam? quis propitiabitur peccatis illius? (Kechi. 
xxviii. 25); et de Evangelio, Dimitte, et dimittetur volis (Lue. 
vi. 37): ut possimus dicere, Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos 
dimittimus debitoribus nostris (Matth. vi. 12); et de Apostolo, Nulla 
malum pro malo reddentes (Rom. xii. 17): et si qua sunt hujusmodi 
in Scripturis sanctis, quibus, ad ulciscendum quando humanus animus 
excitatur, quia christianus est, mitigatur ? 


Caput XV.—Mariti ad parcendum adulteris uxoribus non licentia 
libidinis, sed cura pietatis adducantur. Quanto, inquam, melius ista 
dicimus, quam ut dicamus, Tantum adulteras istas dimittite, et 
earum nolite sanguinem quaerere ; quidquid doloris ex earum flagitiis 
habetis, consolabuntur vos aliae quas duxeritis: merito enim velletis 
istas de viventium numero auferre, si earum vita impedimento esset, 
quominus alias duceretis; nunc vero, etiam istis viventibus cum 
liceat alia vobis matrimonia providere, quid eas tantopere vultis 
occidere? Haec si dicimus, nonne attendis quam nostra suasio longe 
sit a charactere christiano?; quia et falsum dicimus, eis licere quod 
non licet, hoc est, istis viventibus ut aliis copulentur ; et si propterea 
illis pepercerint, non parcent propter pietatem, sed propter aliarum 
nuptiarum liberam potestatem. Postremo quaero abs te, utrum 
marito christiano liceat vel secundum veterem Dei legem, vel Ro- 
manis legibus adulteram occidere®? Si licet, melius est ut ab utroque 
se temperet, id est, et a licito illa peccante supplicio, et ab illicito illa 
vivente conjugio. Quod si alterutrum eligere perseverat, satius est 
ei facere quod licet, ut adultera puniatur, quam id quod non licet, ut 
ipsa viva ille moechetur. Si autem, quod verius dicitur, non licet 
homini christiano adulteram conjugem occidere, sed tantum dimit- 
tere; quis est tam demens qui ei dicat, Fac quod non licet, ut tibi 
liceat quod non leet? Cum enim utrumque secundum legem Christi 
illicitum sit, sive adulteram occidere, sive illa vivente alteram ducere, 
ab utroque abstinendum est, non illicitum pro illicito faciendum. Si 
enim facturus est quod non licet, jam faciat adulterium, et non faciat 


['] Corbiensis Codex, Charitate Christi. 
[?] Sic omnes MSS. At editi vel Romanes leges adulteram occidere. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 279 


homicidium ; ut vivente uxore alteram ducat, et non humanum san- 
guinem fundat. Quod si est utrumque nefarium, non debet alterum 
pro altero perpetrare, sed utrumque vitare. 


Caput XVI.—16. Objectatur incontinentem, si adulterae uxori 
suae mortem accusando procurarit, veniam accepturum per Bap- 
tismum aut reconciliationem, quae sibt alioquin perpetuo adultero 
denegarentur. Graviora contra Pollentii opinionem excogitart posse, 
quam quae ab illo objectuntur incommoda. Hic video quid dici ab 
incontinentibus possit: quod videlicet qui dimittit et vivere permittit 
adulteram, si alteram duxerit, quamdiu prior illa vivit, perpetuus 
adulter est, nec agit poenitentiam fructuosam a flagitio non recedens ; 
nec si catechumenus est, ad Baptismum admittitur, quoniam ab eo 
quod impedit non mutatur; nec reconciliari poenitens potest in eadem 
nequitia perseverans: si autem accusando adulteram occiderit, hoc 
peccatum quoniam transactum est, et in eo non permanet, et si a 
catechumeno factum est, Baptismate abluitur ; et si a baptizato, poeni- 
tentia et reconciliatione sanatur. Sed numquid propterea dicturi 
sumus adulterium non esse adulterium, quod sine dubio committitur, 
si conjuge adultera vivente altera ducitur? Sed hoc adulterii genere 
excepto, nempe non dubitas esse adulterium, si quisquam ducat 
viventis uxorem a viro suo per libellum repudii sine ulla mulieris 
fornicatione dimissam. Quid ergo, cum viderit se nec ad Baptismum 
admitti, si catechumenus, nec utiliter agere poenitentiam, si bap- 
tizatus hoe fecit, non corrigendo et relinquendo quod fecit, si cum 
voluerit et potuerit occidere cujus duxit uxorem, ut hoe scelus vel 
Baptismate diluatur, vel poenitendo solvatur, atque ita etiam illud 
adulterium non permaneat, evacuata muliere a lege viri post mortem 
viri, sed de transacto quod factum est, per poenitentiam satis fiat, 
vel regeneratione deleatur; numquid propterea est accusanda lex 
Christi, tanquam compulerit fieri homicidium, cum sine crimine for- 
nicationis repudiatum ducere, dicit esse adulterium ? 

17. Hic enim, si parum quid loquamur attendimus, multo graviora 
dici possunt quam ipse dixisti. Nam tu dum non vis esse adulteria, 
si aliae ducantur dimissis adulteris, hoc invenisti: Quoniam sz haec 
adulteria dixerimus cogentur mariti occidere adulteras, quarum vita 
impediuntur alteras ducere. Atque ut hoc exaggerares, dixisti : 
Non mihi videtur, amantissime pater, hic divinus esse sensus, ubt 
benignitas et pietas excluditur. Si ergo quispiam nolens credere 
esse adulterium quando a marifo sine fornicationis crimine repudiata 
ab altero ducitur, et hoc contra te inveniat, quia ista ratione suadetur 


280 HOLY MATRIMONY 


hominibus homicidia perpetrare, et earum maritos, quas eo modo 
repudiatas duxerint, vel insidiis quibus potuerint, vel calumnuis ap- 
petere, vel aliquibus veris criminibus accusare et occidere, ut eis 
mortuis esse possint conjugia, quae vivis fuerant adulteria; nonne id 
exaggerando tibi dicturus est: Non mihi videtur, amantissime frater, 
hic divinus esse sensus, ubi non solum benignitas et pietas excluditur, 
sed etiam ingens malignitas et impietas excitatur? Quandoquidem 
multo est levius et tolerabilius, ut adulteras mariti, quam ut maritos 
adulteri occidant. Placetne tibi, ut propter vanissimam invidiam, 
dominicae defensionem sententiae deseramus, vel eam insuper ac- 
cusemus, dicentes non debere adulterium vindicari!, etiamsi praeter 
causam fornicationis repudiata a viro alteri conjugetur, ne maritum 
ejus a quo dimissa est compellatur occidere, dum adulterium in 
connubium cupit viri prioris morte convertere? Scio hoc tibi non 
placere, ut propter hance vanissimam invidiam, lex Christi, cum vera 
inveniatur et sana, dura et inhumana dicatur. Sic itaque non tibi 
debet videri ideo negandum esse adulterium, quando uxore adultera 
vivente altera ducitur, quia potest maritus per hoc cogi adulteram 
occidere, dum cupit sibi licere illa exstincta alteram ducere, si hoc ea 
vivente non licet facere. Quid si enim et illud dicant christianae 
fidei detractores, cogi homines occidere uxores suas insidiarum 
sceleribus, quas molestas ferre non possunt, sive diuturno languore 
laborantes et pati concubitum non valentes, sive pauperes, sive 
steriles, sive deformes, aliarum spe ducendarum, sanarum, opulen- 
tarum, fecundarum, pulcherrimarum ; quia eas perpeti nolunt, praeter 
causam fornicationis repudiare non licet et alteras ducere, ne perpetuo 
devincti adulterio, nec baptizari possint, nec poenitendo sanari? 
Numquid propterea ne ista homicidiorum scelera perpetrentur, dicturi 
sumus, non esse adulteria, repudiatis praeter causam fornicationis 
uxoribus, sibi alteras copulare 4 


Caput XVII.—18. Incommodum aliud contra Pollentii senten- 
tiam. Jam vero ex hoc quod sapis non esse adulterium, si vir 
uxorem causa fornicationis abjecerit, et alteram duxerit; nonne 
arbitraris cavendum, ne discant viri uxores suas, quas propter alias 
innumerabiles causas ferre non possunt, moechari cogere, ut ab eis 
vinculo conjugali per fornicationem, sicut putas, soluto, liceat eis 
alteras ducere; et ex eo quod illas moechari coegerunt, aut Bap- 
tismate ablui, aut poenitendo sanari, quoniain illis et gratia et 
medicina negabitur quamdiu cum adulteris vivent, si prioribus 





[7] Michaelinus Codex, judicari. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 281 


praeter causam fornicationis repudiatis alteras duxerint? Nisi forte 
quis dicat, neminem posse uxorem suam moechari facere, si pudica 
est: et tamen Dominus, Omnis qui dimiserit, inquit, wxorem suam, 
praeter causam fornicationis, facit eam moechart. (Matth. v. 33.) 
Utique propterea, quia cum esset pudica cum viro, tamen dimissa 
cogitur per incontinentiam vivo priore alteri copulari, et hoc est 
moechari. Quod si hoc ista non fecerit, tamen ille quantum in ipso 
est facere compulit; et hoc ei Deus peccatum, etiamsi 1116. casta 
permaneat, imputabit. Sed quis nesciat quam sint rarissimae, quae 
ita pudice vivant cum viris, ut etiamsi ab eis dimittantur, alios non 
requirant? Incomparabiliter quippe numerus est amplior feminarum, 
quae cum pudice adhaereant maritis, tamen si dimissae fuerint a 
maritis, non differunt nubere. Cum ergo crediderint homines Domino 
dicenti, Omnis qui dimiserit uxorem suam, praeter causam fornica- 
tionis, facit eam moechari, si crediderint et tibi dicenti, muliere 
fornicante licere viro ejus alteram ducere; quisquis voluerit propter 
alias quaslisbet molestias carere uxore cul junctus est, prius eam 
moechari faciat, sine fornicatione dimittendo, ut tune ducat alteram, 
cum fuerit illa moecha nubendo; ac sic a priore peccato quo eam 
moechari fecit, sive per Baptismum, sive per poenitentiam liberatus, 
sine suo adulterio sibi habere videatur, quam post prioris adulterium, 
tanquam hine soluto matrimonii vinculo alteram duxerit. Quod 
quidem si fuerit machinatus, et uxorem suam moecham faciet, et 
ipse quamvis post adulterium conjugis aliam ducendo moechus erit ; 
nihilque illi proderit quod tibi credidit, et non ei potius qui nullo 
excepto ait, Omnis qui reliquerit uxorem suam et aliam duxerit, 
moechatur. (Luc. xvi. 18.) 

Caput XVIII.—19. Continentia servanda aut conjugalis aut ex- 
cellentior. Quibus omnibus consideratis atque tractatis restat ut ab 
els qui haec fideliter audiunt, dicatur nobis quod Domino dictum est : 
Si talis est causa cum uxore, non expedit nubere. Quibus et nos 
quid respondeamus, nisi quod ipse respondit? Mon omnes capiunt 
verbum hoc, sed quibus datum est. Sunt enim eunuchi qui de 
mutris utero sic natt sunt; et sunt eunuchi qui facti sunt ab hom- 
inibus ; et sunt eunucht qui se ipsos castraverunt propter regnum 
coelorum. Qui potest capere capiat. (Matth. xix. 10-12.) Ergo qui 
potest capiat, quod non omnes capiunt. Possunt autem capere hi 
quibus hoc praestat Dei misericordia occulta, sed justa'. Sed in his 
omnibus qui se ipsos castraverunt propter regnum coelorum, alii sunt 





['] Lov. sed non injusta. MSS. et alii sed justa, 


282 HOLY MATRIMONY 


qui in utroque sexu concubitum nesciunt, alii qui experti et aversi 
sunt, partim quidem illicite, partim vero licite experti. Porro in his 
qui licite experti sunt, quidam sunt qui non nisi licite, quidam et 
illicite et licite. Sunt quippe in eis qui conjugia sua tantum sciunt: 
sunt autem qui et alias feminas ac stupra quaelibet. Sed qui post 
concubitum conjugum se ipsos castrant propter regnum coelorum, aut 
morte amittunt conjuges, aut ex consensu cum eis continentiam pro- 
fitentur; aut ex necessitate divortiorum, ne vivis conjugibus se aliis 
copulando adulteria perpetrent, castrant se ipsos propter regnum 
coelorum, non ut clariores ibi esse possint, sed quod aliter ibi esse 
non possint: nam qui non ista necessitate se continent, sed boni 
appetitione melioris, possent ibi esse etiam servata pudicitia conjugal, 
quamyis in praemlis minoribus, tamen intus. Qui vero propterea 
se continent, quia prioribus conjugibus vivis timent aliis conjugari, 
majorem curam debent gerere pro salute, quam gesserunt 1111 a quibus 
continentia pro munere delecta est! ampliore. Tune quippe ibi erunt, 
si adulteri non erunt. Si autem non continent, adulteri erunt; quia 
viventibus conjugibus pristinis, non conjugibus alteris, sed adulteris 
adhaerebunt. Jt si a regno coelorum aberunt, ubi erunt, nisi ubi 
salvi non erunt ? 

Caput XIX.—20. Conjuges divortio separatos a conjugibus hor- 
tatur ad continentiam. Hos igitur alloquor, ut quod facere deberent, 
si haberent conjuges diuturno languore marcescentes, vel loco sibi 
inaccessibili absentes, vel animositate illicita continentes ; hoc faciant, 
si habuerint conjuges adulterina inquinatione sordentes, et propter 
hoe a suo consortio divortiantes?: non alia quaerant conjugia, quia 
non erunt conjugia, sed adulteria. Cum enim par forma sit in hoc 
vinculo viri et uxoris, sicut uxor vivente viro vocabitur adultera, sv 
Suerit cum alio viro (Rom. vil. 3); ita et vir vivente uxore vocabitur 
adulter, si fuerit cum alia muliere. LEtsi enim gravius qui praeter 
causam fornicationis, omnis tamen qui dimiserit uxorem suam, et 
aliam duxerit, moechatur. Non eos terreat sarcina continentiae : 
levis erit, si Christi erit ; Christi erit, si fides aderit, quae impetrat a 
jubente quod jusserit. Non eos frangat, quod videtur eorum conti- 
nentia necessitatis esse, non voluntatis: quia et illi qui eam voluntate 
delegerunt, fecerunt eam esse necessitatis; quoniam jam sine dam- 
natione ab illa deviare non possunt: et qui in eam necessitate 
contrusi sunt, faciunt eam esse voluntatis, si non de se ipsis, sed de 
illo a quo est bonum omne confidunt. Illi ad eam conscenderunt 


[1] Er. et MSS. dilecta est. [3] In MSS. divortientes, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 289 


causa majoris gloriae, ut aliquid amplius invenirent; isti ad eam 
confugerunt cura salutis novissimae, ne perirent: utrique permaneant, 
utrique in quod pervenerunt ambulent usque in finem, ferveant 
studiis, supplicent votis qua et illis salus cogitanda est, ut ab eo quod 
voluntas arripuit cadere timeant; et istis gloria desperanda non est, 
sl in eo quod necessitas intulit, persistere deligant®. Fieri enim 
potest ut Deo terrente et hortante, convertente et implente, humanus 
in melius mutetur affectus ; atque ita voveant sine conjugiis et sine 
ullo concubitu atque immunda libidinis attrectatione perseverantissime 
vivere, ut etiamsi separata conjugia locum ducendi alias moriendo 
aperuerint, claudatur ex voto quod patet ex licito, et quod erat 
necessitate coeptum, fiat charitate perfectum. , Talibus profecto id 
retribuetur, quod illis qui vel pari consensu cum conjugibus hoc 
voverunt, vel nullis conjugiis alligati propter majus bonum con- 
tinentiam delegerunt. Si autem ita se continent, ut si moriantur 
quarum vita conjugari impediuntur, alias ducere cogitent; profecto 
etiamsi prius ipsi in tali continentia de corpore abscedant, non eis 
imputatur nisi ad pudicitiam conjugalem, propter quam non faciunt 
quod facerent si liceret. Hac quippe intentione continenter vivere, 
parum est ad accipienda illius quae liberius eligitur continentiae 
praemia, sed sufficit ad cavenda adulteria. 

Caput XX.—21. Virt muliertbus praeire in pudicitia debent. 
Continentiam clericorum qui electi sunt invitt proponit viris nolenti- 
bus in divortio se continere. Haec autem me de utroque sexu 
memineris dicere, sed maxime propter viros, qui propterea se feminis 
superiores esse arbitrantur, ne pudicitia pares esse dignentur: in qua 
etiam praeire debuerunt, ut eos illae tanquam sua capita sequerentur. 
Quando autem lex prohibet adulteria, si obtentu incontinentiae 
carnalis infirmitatis admittatur excusatio, multis sub nomine falsae 
impunitatis pereundi aperitur occasio. Neque enim carnem non 
habent feminae, quibus viri aliquid tale nolunt licere, quasi eis, quia 
viri sunt, liceat. Sed absit ut melioris sexus! tanquam honori 
debeatur, quod pudori detrahitur; cum honor justus virtuti, non 
vitio debeatur. Quinimo cum a feminis utique habentibus carnem, 
tantam flagitant castitatem, ut quando ab uxoribus diutissime pere- 
grinantur, velint eas ab adulterino concubitu incontaminatas fervorem 
transigere juventutis (et plurimae pudicissime transigunt, eb maxime 
Syrae, quarum mariti negotiandi quaestibus occupati, juvenes ado- 





[] Er. et MSS. diligant. 
[*] Sola editio Lov.: Sed absit hoc a meliori sexu, ut tanquam, etc, 


284 HOLY MATRIMONY 


lescentulas deserunt, et vix aliquando senes ad aniculas revertuntur) ; 
eo ipso evidentius convincuntur non esse impossibile quod se non 
posse causantur. Si enim hoe non posset infirmitas hominum, multo 
minus id posset sexus infirmior feminarum. 

22. Unde istos qui virilem excellentiam non putant nisi peccandi 
licentiam, quando terremus ne adulterinis conjugiis haerendo pereant 
in aeternum, solemus eis proponere etiam continentiam clericorum, 
qui plerumque ad eamdem sarcinam subeundam capiuntur inviti, 
eamque susceptam usque ad debitum finem, Domino adjuvante, per- 
ducunt. Dicimus ergo eis: Quid si et vos ad hoc subeundum 
populorum violentia caperemini? nonne susceptum caste custodiretis 
officium, repente conversi ad impetrandas vires a Domino, de quibus 
nunquam antea cogitastis? Sed illos, inquiunt, honor plurimum 
consolatur. Respondemus: Et vobis timor multo amplius moderetur?. 
Si enim hoc multi Dei ministri repente atque imopinate impositum 
susceperunt, sperantes se illustrius in Christi haereditate fulgere ; 
quanto magis vos adulteria cavendo, vivere continenter debetis, 
metuentes non in regno Dei minus lucere, sed in gehenna ignis 
ardere? Haec atque hujusmodi eis ut possumus dicimus, qui quoquo 
modo a se discedentibus vel propter adulterium dimissis conjugibus 
suis, alias volunt ducere, et cum prohibentur, infirmitatem nobis carnis 
opponunt. Sed jam liber etiam iste claudendus est, et rogandus Deus 
ut aut eos tentari non sinat separationibus conjugum ; aut ita sinat, ut 
timor periclitantis salutis fiat ills amplioris sive probatioris occasio 
castitatis. 

De Genesi ad litteram, lib. ix. c. 7.) 

Hoe autem (bonum nuptiarum) tripartitum est; fides, proles, sacra- 
mentum. In fide attenditur ne praeter vinculum conjugale, cum 
altera vel altero concumbatur: in prole, ut amanter suscipiatur, 
benigne nutriatur, religiose educetur: in sacramento autem, ut con- 
jugium non separetur, et dimissus aut dimissa nec causa prolis alteri 
conjungatur. Haec est tanquam regula nuptiarum, qua vel naturae 
decoratur fecunditas, vel incontinentiae regitur pravitas. 


AFRICAN CODE. 
Canon 102? (=Canon 8 of the Synod of Carthage of 407 a.p.). 


Placuit, ut secundum evangelicam et apostolicam disciplinam neque 
dimissus ab uxore, neque dimissa a marito alteri conjungantur, sed 


['] Sola editio Lov.: Ht vos timor amplior moderetur. 
2 Migne’s Ed. tom. ili. p. 397. 3 Mansi, tom. iii. p. 806. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 285 


ita maneant, aut sibimet reconcilientur. Quodsi contempserint, ad 
poenitentiam redigantur. In qua causa legem imperialem petendum 
est promulgari. 


S. Innocent I. 
Epistle it. to Victricius of Rouen. ὃ. 13.1 


Si enim de omnibus haec ratio custoditur, ut quaecumque vivente 
viro alteri nupserit, habeatur adultera, nec ei agendae poenitentiae 
licentia concedatur, nisi unus ex 115 defunctus fuerit: quanto magis 
de illa tenenda est, quae ante immortali se sponso conjunxerat et 
postea ad humanas nuptias transmigravit. 


Ad Exsuperium Episcopum Tolosanum, ec. 4.3 


Et illud desideratum est sciri, cur communicantes viri cum adulteris 
uxoribus non conveniant, cum contra uxores in consortio adulterorum 
virorum manere videantur. Super hoe Christiana religio adulterium 
in utroque sexu pari ratione condemnat. Sed viros suos mulieres 
non facile de adulterio accusant, et non habent latentia peccata 
vindictam : viri autem liberius uxores adulteras apud sacerdotes 
deferre consueverunt, et ideo mulieribus prodito earum crimine 
communio denegatur: virorum autem latente commisso, non facile 
quisquam ex suspicionibus abstinetur. Qui utique submovebitur, si 
ejus flagitium detegatur. Cum ergo par sit causa, interdum, pro- 
batione cessante, vindictae ratio conquiescit. 


6. 6. 


De his etiam requisivit dilectio tua, qui interveniente repudio alti 
se matrimonio copularunt: quos in utraque parte adulteros esse mani- 
festum est. Qui vero vel uxore vivente, quamvis dissociatum 
videatur esse conjugium, ad aliam copulam festinarunt, neque 
possunt adulteri non videri, in tantum ut etiam hae personae, quibus 
tales conjuncti sunt, etiam ipsae adulterlum commisisse videantur . 
secundum ilud quod legimus in evangelio. Qui dimiserit uxorem 
suam et duxerit aliam, moechatur: simaliter et qui dimissam duxerit, 
moechatur. Et ideo tales omnes a communione fidelium abstinendos. 
De parentibus autem, aut de propinquis eorum, nihil tale statui 
potest, nisi si incentores illiciti consortii fuisse detegantur. 


1 Migne’s Ed. Pat. Lat. tom. xx. p. 379. 
2 Mansi, tom. iii. p. 1040. 


286 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Epistle xxxvi. to Probus 


Conturbatio procellae barbaricae facultati legum intulit casum. 
Nam bene constituto matrimonio inter Fortunium et Ursam cap- 
tivitatis incursus fecerat naevum, nisi sancta religionis statuta 
providerent. Cum enim in captivitate praedicta Ursa mulier 
teneretur; aliud conjugium cum Restituta Fortunius memoratus 
inisse cognoscitur. Sed favore Domini reversa Ursa nos adiit, et 
nullo diffitente, uxorem se memorati perdocuit. Quare, domine fili 
merito illustris, statuimus, fide catholica suffragante, illud esse con- 
jugium, quod erat primitus gratia divina fundatum ; conventumque 
secundae mulieris, priore superstite, nec divortio ejecta, nullo pacto 
posse esse legitimum. 

S. 180 THE Great. 
Epistola εἴ. Ad Nicetam Episcopum Aquiletensem.? 


Cum ergo per bellicam cladem et per gravissimos hostilitatis in- 
cursus, ita quaedam dicatis divisa esse conjugia, ut abductis in 
captivitatem viris feminae eorum remanserint destitutae, quae cum 
viros proprios aut interemptos putarent, aut numquam a dominatione 
crederent liberandos, ad aliorum conjugium, solitudine cogente, 
transierint. Cumque nunc statu rerum, auxiliante Domino, in 
meliora converso, nonnulli eorum qui putabantur perlisse, remea- 
verint, merito charitas tua videtur ambigere quid de mulieribus, quae 
aliis junctae sunt viris, a nobis debeat ordinari. Sed quia novimus 
scriptum, quod a Deo jungitur mulier viro, et iterum praeceptum 
agnovimus ut guod Deus junxit homo non separet, necesse est ut 
legitimarum foedera nuptiarum redintegranda credamus, et remotis 
malis quae hostilitas intulit, unicuique hoc quod legitime habuit 
reformetur, omnique studio procurandum est ut recipiat unusquisque 
quod proprium est. 

Nec tamen culpabilis judicetur, et tamquam alieni juris pervasor 
habeatur, qui personam ejus mariti, qui jam non esse existimabatur, 
assum psit. 

Et ideo si viri post longam captivitatem reversi ita in dilectione 
suarum conjugum perseverent, ut eas cupiant in suum redire con- 
sortium, omittendum est et inculpabile judicandum quod necessitas 
intulit, et restituendum quod fides poscit. 


1 Migne’s Ed. Pat. Lat. tom. xx. pp. 602, 3. 
2 Migne’s Ed, tom. i. pp. 1136-7. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 287 


Si autem aliquae mulieres ita posteriorum virorum amore sunt 
captae, ut malint his cohaerere quam ad legitimum redire consortium, 
merito sunt notandae; ita ut etiam ecclesiastica communione pri- 
ventur: quae de re excusabili contaminationem criminis elegerunt, 
ostendentes sibimet pro sua incontinentia placuisse, quod justa re- 
missio poterat expiare. 


ARABIC CaNoNns OF S. Hippotytus (so-called). 
Canon 16.1 


Canon decimus sextus de eo, qui habet concubinam, qua spreta 
aliam ducere vult. 

Si Christianus, postquam cum concubina speciali vixit, quae ex 
ipso peperit filium, illa spreta (aliam foeminam) ducere vult, est 
occisor hominis, nisi forte in fornicatione illam deprehenderit. 


AMBROSIASTER. 
Commentary on 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11.? 


Hoc Apostoli consilium est, ut si discesserit propter malam conver- 
sationem Virl, jam innupta maneat. <Auwt viro suo reconciliart. Quod 
si continere se, inquit, non potest, quia pugnare non vult contra 
carnem, viro reconcilietur; non enim permittitur mulieri, ut nubat, si 
virum suum causa fornicationis dimiserit, aut apostasiae, aut si illicita 
impellente lascivia, usum quaerat uxoris ; quia inferior non omnino 
hac lege utitur, qua potior. Si tamen apostaverit vir, aut usum 
quaerat uxoris invertere; nec alii potest nubere mulier, nec reverti 
ad illum. Et virum uxorem non dimittere.  Subauditur autem, 
excepta fornicationis causa. Et ideo non subjecit dicens, sicut de 
muliere: quod si discesserit, manere sic; quia viro licet ducere 
uxorem, si dimiserit uxorem peccantem : quia non ita lege constrin- 
gitur vir, sicut mulier ; caput enim mulieris vir est. 


Opus IMPERFECTUM IN MaTTHAEUM. 
Hom. 32. 


Amen dico vobis, quicumque dimiserit uxorem suam, nist fornica- 
tionis causa, moechatur. Omnis res, per quas causas nascitur, per 
ipsas absolvitur. Matrimonium enim non facit coitus, sed voluntas : 
et ideo illud non solvit separatio corporis, sed separatio volun- 
tatis. Ideo qui dimittit conjugem suam, et aliam non accipit, 


1 De Haneberg, Canones S. Hippolyti Monachii, 1870, p. 72. 
2 Migne’s S. Ambrose, tom. ii. p. 218. 


Introduc- 
tory state- 
ment. 
General 
features of 
the period, 


288 HOLY MATRIMONY 


adhuec maritus est. Nam etsi corpore jam separatus est, tamen adhuc 
voluntate conjunctus est. Cum ergo aliam acceperit, tunc plene 
dimittit. Non ergo qui dimittit moechatur, sed qui alteram ducit. 
Sicut autem crudelis est et iniquus, qui castam dimittit: sic fatuus 
est et injustus, qui retinet meretricem. Nam patronus turpitudinis 
ejus est, qui crimen celat uxoris. 


The second period of Christian antiquity is markedly different 
froin the first. The scourge of outward persecution has passed 
away. The tide of human fashion takes up and patronizes the 
Church of Christ. In the imperial court, in the drawing-rooms 
of society, in the assemblies of the educated, it is usual, and 
even commendable, to be a follower of the Crucified. The laws 
of Christian morals cannot indeed, so far as they are at 
variance with the tone and traditions of the Roman Empire, 
be embodied in the laws of Rome, for, though Christianity has 
become a prominent power, Christianity has not swallowed 
up the world. A great proportion of the population throughout 
this period are pagani, the country people, rude, illiterate, 
uncultivated; not readily touched either by the follies or by the 
repentances of the capital, they remain pagans; and among 
the educated classes themselves, while Christianity 1s becoming 
more and more accepted, it is not till the close of the period 
that it can claim to be in any sense universal. In any 
question of morals, as the word implies, the conventional tone 
of the age must play an important part; and in a matter at 
once so fundamental in character and so general in usage 
as the institution of marriage, to overlook the part played by 
the conventional tone is simply to vitiate the survey. The 
investigation which we have pursued with regard to the three 
first centuries of the Christian era has led to the conclusions 
that (1) the continuous and consistent teaching of that time 
was that Christian or Holy Matrimony was in its essential 
character indissoluble, but that (2) the communis sensus of the 
Church had not availed to prevent certain persons from 
having recourse to the permission of the secular law to 
contract fresh unions after divorce, and that, at any rate in 
some of these cases known to Origen, the bishops themselves 
had not withheld their countenance. This then was the 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 289 


attitude of Christianity towards the question of remarriage 
after divorce at the time when Constantine accepted the 
doctrines of Christianity. (314 a.p.) From that time onwards Unworthy 
the Church had to suffer the ingress of every description of °°’°"** 
unworthy applicant. Courtiers greedy for place and emolument, 
fashionable ladies living for pleasure and display, soldiers with 
the free manners of the camp, hangers-on and serving men 
of every kind ready to qualify for whatever might be going; 
these and a mongrel crowd of others like them filled the new. 
basilicas which rose resplendent with gold and jewels in the 
great cities of the Empire. The faith and the patience of the 
saints were now in some respects more sorely tried than 
ever before. Is there any difficulty in declaring a priort what 
would be the attitude of at any rate a considerable section 
of this world-made church towards the ordinance of marriage ? 
Speculative opinions sit lightly enough on unearnest men, but 
the passions of men are not conquered by the easy assumption 
of new views, and where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there 
is not liberty from the passions, but bondage to them. Was it 
to be supposed for a moment that this new Christian society 
would accept without a murmur the strict prohibitions of the 
Christian law? Was such acceptance the more likely because 
while on the one hand the secular statutes left abundant 
liberty to all laxity of practice, on the other the Spirit of the 
Church was not yet embodied in any canons or statutes whatso- 
ever, but simply existed as an indefinite tradition in the hearts 
and consciences of the faithful? And so, in fact, we find in 
this period that, alongside of the earnest and continued teaching 
of the indissolubility of marriage on the part of all the great 
doctors of the Christian Church, there is abundant evidence 
of laxity of practice on the part of Christian men and women, 
who would not be bound, and to whom the secular law 
of Rome was all the law they cared to recognise. 

There is another feature of this period which is of great im- Divergence 
portance to the right understanding both of the period itself 7eastans 
and of the whole subsequent history of the Church of Christ. 

It is at this time that the great divergence of East and West, 
which later on was to lead to a lasting breach, begins to. be 
U 


TheChurch 
in the East 
subservient 
to the 
State; in 
the West 
indepen- 
dent. 


The Roman 
law of 
divorce. 


Divorce by 
mutual 
consent, 


290 HOLY MATRIMONY 


conspicuous. In nothing is it more conspicuous than in the 
tendency of the East to what we have come to call Erastianismn, 
and in the determination of the West to maintain spiritual 
independence at all hazards. And in nothing has this antagonism 
of spiritual freedom and state control led to more deplorable 
contrariety than in the whole province of the laws of marriage. 
For more than a thousand years past the rule and practice of 
the Church of the East on the subject especially of remarriage 
after divorce have been altogether irreconcileable with the rule 
and practice of the West; and in the period now to be reviewed 
we shall not fail to find the beginnings of this contrariety. In 
Constantinople the Emperors and the Imperial Court over- 
shadowed and overawed the Patriarchal throne; in old Rome 
itself the Patriarch of the West was neither overshadowed nor 
overawed by any. In Constantinople the provisions of the civil 
law, the pleadings of a present expediency, the blandishments 
of place and power, dimmed the clear outlines of the moral law 
of Christ; in Rome Christian men had the courage of their 
convictions, and their convictions held the day. 

These considerations will place us in a better position to 
understand the evidences of Christian belief and practice in the 
period from Constantine to Justinian. To appreciate their 
force it will be necessary at the outset to examine the provisions 
of the secular law, and the influence of these upon the practice 
of the Empire. 

Foremost among the provisions of the secular law must be 
remembered the unfettered liberty of divorce by mutual con- 
sent. The laws of Constantine (331 A.D.), of Honorius and 
Theodosius (421 A.D.), of Theodosius and Valentinian (449 «.p.) 
alike left this permission untouched. Throughout this period, 
as before, it was always possible, so far as the secular law was 
concerned, for a husband and wife to effect a divorce by simply 
agreeing to effect it; and, of course, if Christians wished to 
avail themselves of this liberty, it was as much open to them as 
to others. 

This simple consideration renders at once absurd all attempts 
to argue from Roman legislation under the Christian emperors 
as though such legislation were itself Christian. Alike in East 
and West the attitude of the Church to the practice of divorce 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 291 


by mere consent was uniformly hostile; and there is no instance 
in any age or in any part of the Church of a Christian writer 
who justifies, or of a Christian council which sanctions, this 
fatal facility. 

Next as regards divorce effected by one party on the ground Divorce on 
of offence by the other, the legislation of the period shews con- &0unds of 
siderable advance in the direction of restriction. This advance 
was doubtless due in some degree, if not entirely, to the pressure 
of Christian feeling; but while the tendency of change was so 
far in the right direction, a survey of the marriage legislation 
of the period will shew at a glance how immeasurably short it 
fell of the high standard taken up by the Christian writers. 

It was the Emperor Constantine, who in 331 A.D., doubtless Legislative 
under Christian influences, revived the legislation against ΩΣ ΩΣ 
capricious repudiations. The lex Julia et Papia Poppaea had tne. 
deprived the author of a causeless divorce of the material 
advantages which marriage had brought to him; and proceeding 
farther on the same lines the law of Constantine specified the 
causes for which alone one party could divorce the other with- 
out incurring penalties. They were as follows: 

A. A wife might repudiate her husband for— 

(1) murder, 
(2) the preparation of poisons, 
(3) the violation of tombs. 

If a wife divorced her husband for any other reason, as 
e.g. for being a drunkard, or a gambler, or for being given 
to the society of loose women, the divorce seems to have 
stood good in law, but the wife forfeited her dowry, and 
was punishable with deportation. 

B. A husband might divorce his wife for— 

(1) adultery, 
(2) the preparation of poisons, 
(3) being a procuress. 

If a husband divorced his wife for any other reason, 
the divorce appears to have stood good in law, but the 
husband forfeited all interest in his wife’s dowry ; and if 
he married again, the divorced wife was authorized to 
seize the dowry of the second wife. 

cet Oc el ΠΡΟ tit 10: 1: 
U 2 





292 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(ii) Honor- The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, in imposing re- 

sonnet, strictions afresh (421 A.p.), did not see fit to re-impose the 
provisions of the law of Constantine. It was enacted instead 
that— 

A. (a) If a wife divorced her husband for grave reasons, or 
for crime, she could retain her dowry and the gifts 
made to her by her husband on betrothal, and 
could marry again after five years. 

(b) If for breaches of morality, or for moderate faults, 
the wife forfeited her dowry and the donatio, and 
was forbidden to marry again. | 

(c) If without any proved ground, the wife forfeited 
dowry and donatio, was forbidden to marry again, 
and was not to receive pardon from the Emperor. 

B. (a) If a husband divorced a wife for a serious crime, the 
husband retained the wife’s dowry, and could at 
once marry again. 

(Ὁ) If for immorality, but not crime, the husband might 
not retain the property brought by the wife into 
the marriage, but could at once marry again. 

(c) If for mere dishke, the husband forfeited the donatio 
as well as the dowry, and was forbidden to re- 
marry. 

ances From whatsoever cause, these provisions seem to have soon 

Valentinian Decome a dead letter. Perhaps they were too strict for the 
public conscience ; but, however this may have been, in 449 A.D. 
Theodosius and Valentinian are found introducing new legisla- 
tion. It was now enacted that— 

A. A wife could divorce her husband without blame if he 

were convicted of any of the following offences: 
1. Treason. 
. Adultery. 
. Homicide. 
. Poisoning. 
. Forgery. 
Violating sepulchres. 


D> Ol O bo 


1 Cod. Theo. iii. 16, 2. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 293 


7. Stealing from a church. 
8. Robbery, or assisting or harbouring robbers. 
9. Cattle-stealing. 

10. Attempting the wife’s life. 

11. Introducing immoral women into the house. 

12. Beating or whipping the wife. 

If the wife divorced her husband on any other ground 
she forfeited her dowry, and could not marry again 
for five years. 

B. A husband could divorce his wife for any of the above 
reasons (the 11th of course excepted), and also for— 

1. Going to dine with men not her relatives with- 
out the- knowledge or against the wishes of 
her husband. 

2. Going from home at night against his wishes 
without reasonable cause. 

3. Frequenting the circus, theatre, or amphitheatre 
after being forbidden by her husband. 


[To these grounds Justinian added— 
4. Procuring abortion. 
5. Frequenting baths with men. |] 
If a husband divorced his wife on any other ground he 
forfeited all interest in his wife’s dowry, and also his 
own donatio ante nuptias.* 


The provisions of the secular law which have been now 
particularised are important in the present investigation on 
two grounds. The first of them is the great divergence which 
is seen to exist between the secular law and the Christian Dis- 
teaching, a divergence which explains the attitude of the G2 οὗ 
Christian Church in the matter, and which at the same time 4"4 secular 
makes all reference to the secular Roman law as to a Christian ὦ 
authority a thing absurd. The second ground on which these Bearing on 
provisions are important is their subsequent history in con- e.. eo 
nexion with the Canon Law of the Eastern Church. It will 
be seen, that while the facility of divorce by mutual consent 


was eventually overthrown in the Empire by the power of the 





Cod? (Just:) vi 17, δ. 


Christian 
authorities. 
Council of 
Arles. 


The inno- 
cent hus- 
band may 


294 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Church, many other grounds of divorce entirely unknown to 
early Christianity were gradually admitted into the practice 
of the Churches of the East, by transference from the secular 
laws of the Empire. 

The Christian authorities of the period may now be con- 
sidered. The first of the series of extracts given above 15 
taken from the canons of the Council of Arles. This council, 
which was held in the year 314 A.p., was the first Christian 
assembly gathered under Imperial auspices. The immediate 
object of the council was to decide the Donatist controversy, 
but the disciplinary difficulties which had already arisen on 
various questions, and not least—as is seen from Origen’s 
statement—on questions of marriage, would naturally come 
up for discussion at so important a meeting. The canon should 
be plain enough to those who understand the relations of the 
early Church to the secular law.! It asserts that young men 
who are Christians are prohibited (ae. by the Christian disci- 
pline, certainly by nothing else) to marry again, although they 
detect their wives in adultery; it assumes that they will put 


notremarry away the wives so detected in adultery; and it lays down that 


every effort should be made in the way of giving such young 
men counsel to the effect that they are not to avail themselves 
of their civil privileges to contract a fresh marriage. The 
reason is the vineulum. They are not to marry others “so long 
as their wives are living, though in adultery.” The wife is the 
wife still, consequently the husband is the husband still. The 
difficulty which some writers have experienced in understanding 
this canon appears to be simply due to the fact that they were 
not familiar with the state of things which arises in questions 
of marriage when the law of the Church and the law of the 
State are not at one. The canon of the Council of Arles is at 
this present time being largely acted upon in most of the 
countries of Western Christendom. A man discovers the 
adultery of his wife, puts her away, and, for better security 





1 “ As to those who detect their wives in adultery, and the same are baptized 
young men, and (so) are forbidden to marry, it is decreed that so far as may be 
counsel be given them that, while their wives are living, although adulteresses, 
they do not marry others,” 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 295 


against the possibilities of inheritance and other consequences, 
avails himself of the legal power of divorce. He is then free 
before the secular law to marry another woman, but the canon 
of Arles would tell him that he is nevertheless prohibited to 
marry, and would expect the clergy to make it their business 
to bring this home to him. This is what in fact the clergy, 
whether of the Roman Catholic Church or of the Anglican 
Church, commonly do. They give the injured husband counsel 
as far as they have the opportunity (in quantum possit) not 
to marry again. 

In one of the manuscripts containing the canons of the Additional 

Council of Arles, and known as the Codew Lucensis, six addi- κάμοηϑ οὗ 
tional canons are given. Mansi thinks that they probably 
belong to some other Council of Arles. The so-called 24th 
Canon of Arles, which we have quoted, is itself proof that 
the additional canons do not belong to the great Council of 
Arles, since it covers the same ground as the canon already 
noticed, and in a somewhat different manner. The so-called 
24th Canon, however, must mount up to a high antiquity, and 
in the absence of any very clear indication of date may as well 
be noticed here. The man is to be warned as far as possible 
that it is not lawful, while his dismissed wife is living, to marry 
another in addition to her (super eam), “ But whosoever shall 
have done this shall be cut off from the Catholic communion.” 
This is a clear excommunication, following on the statement 
that the wife is still the wife, and that any other woman now 
taken is taken super eam. It will not be overlooked that the 
person excommunicated is the husband, and the znnocent 
husband so far as concerns the ground of the separation. 

The Council of Ancyra, the capital of Galatia, appears to Council of 
have been held at some time subsequent to the death of the “"%™* 
Emperor Maximilian, and before the death of Vitalis, Bishop 
of Antioch, who was present at the Council. The date will 
therefore fall between 313 a.p. and 319 a.p. Hefele says that 
the Council of Ancyra may be considered a “conetliwm ple- 
nartum, that is a general council of the churches of Asia 
Minor and Syria.” The 20th Canon decides the penalties of 


1 Hefele, Councils to 325 A.D., English Edition, p. 201. 


Council of 
Neo- 
Caesarea. 


Lactantius. 


296 HOLY MATRIMONY 


adultery. Its wording, however, is by no means clear. The 
offending person is to pass seven years in the different degrees 
of penance; but whether the offending person first specified is 
the guilty wife, or her partner in sin, or a collusive husband, 
has been disputed. Perhaps the most probable rendering is as 
follows: “If any one have violated a married woman, or have 
broken the marriage bond, he must for seven years undergo the 
different degrees of penance, at the end of which he will be 
admitted into the communion of the Church.’ It would 
appear fromm this canon that the license which was assumed 
by men in the Christian Churches of the East in the time of 
5. Basil was at this earlier period by no means recognised. 

The Council of Neo-Caesarea in Cappadocia appears to have 
been held a httle later than that of Ancyra, but before that of 
Nicaea. It has been usually assigned to 315 A.p., but Hefele 
thinks that the date should be placed somewhat later, as there 
is no question at this Council on the subject of the lapsed. 
The 8th Canon is as follows: “If the wife of a layman have ᾿ 
committed adultery, and be publicly convicted of her sin, such 
layman cannot be admitted to the service of the Church. But 
if she have committed adultery after her husband’s ordination 
he must leave her. If, however, he persist in living with her 
he cannot retain the sacred functions which have been 
entrusted to him.” It does not appear whether the restoration 
of a penitent adulteress would be recognised or not. 

The next extract is from Lactantius. Lactantius was tutor 
to Constantine’s son. He was a convert who embraced 
Christianity from conviction, and, as an apologist, he brought to 
the service of his new faith the cultivated style of a 
rhetorician. His acquirements as a master of Christian 
doctrine were, however, hardly on a par with his command 
of argument and of language. Bishop Bull says of him: “He 
was a rhetorician, not a theologian, nor has he ever obtained 
a place among the doctors of the Church.” For the present 
investigation Lactantius is remarkable as being the first writer 
in the history of the Christian Church, whose language 
unquestionably expresses the view that the innocent husband 
who has put away his wife for divorce is free to marry another 


/ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 297 


woman. He says that “he is an adulterer . . . who has 
married one dismissed by her husband, as also he, who except 
for the crime of adultery has dismissed his wife to marry 
another,’* and “He (our Lord) commanded that a wife be 
not dismissed except after conviction of adultery, that so A man who 
the tie of the marriage covenant may never be undone, except Pee ere, 
when it is broken by faithlessness.”? It appears therefore that ode im 
whatever the views of Lactantius may or may not be worth, again. 
this Christian layman in the court of Constantine did distinctly 
hold that the tie of marriage was undone by faithlessness, and 
that the innocent husband at least was at liberty to marry 
again. | 

Before leaving Lactantius it is worth while to notice that 
although he expresses himself in favour of the laxer view 
as regards the remarriage of the innocent husband, what 
he is insisting upon in a treatise addressed to Constantine is 
naturally, not the freedom in the particular instance, but 
the strictness of the Christian law except for it. ΤῸ ἃ Roman 
Emperor, the laws of whose Empire freely admitted divorce 
“for every cause,” and knew of no adultery in a man unless his 
sin were with the actual wife of another, Lactantius writes 
that the following maxims are Divine; “that he is an adulterer, a man who 
who has married one dismissed by her husband, as also he 7a‘ries4 
who, except for the crime of adultery, hath dismissed hig woman 
wife to marry another.” And the tie of marriage, the sdalteren 
“conjugalis foederis vinculum,’ is not to be undone except 
when it is broken by faithlessness. The man and the woman 
are on the same footing. “As the woman is tied by the bonds 
of chastity to desire no other, so let the man be holden by the 
same law, since Gop has firmly bound the husband and wife in 
the frame of one body.”? The strictness of the Christian law, 
even as understood by Lactantius, was simply revolutionary. 
It is not improbable that this “apology” of the Christian tutor 
played a considerable part in leading to that celebrated 
revision of the license of divorce, which was promulgated in 
331 A.D., and to which reference has already been made. 





1 Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum adversus Gentes, lib. vi. ο. 23. 
* Lactantius, Epitome, ὁ..." ©, 3 [bid. Epitome, ο. lvi. 


298 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Thecause It should be noted that the cause which with Lactantius 
μερεβατνερην justifies putting away is post-nuptial sin. The tie is ποῦ 
awayis dissolved “unless she have broken it by faithlessness.” It has 

er sin, therefore existed, and the sin is the sin of adultery. 
Sharan The next writer cited is S. Basil the Great, who was born in 
᾿ 329 av. at Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia. His parents 
were Christians by descent on both sides. His father, also 
named Basil, was an advocate and teacher of rhetoric, 
celebrated for the Christian virtues. The elder Basil and his 
wife Emmelia were blessed with a family of ten children, five of 
each sex. S. Basil was the eldest of the family. He would 
grow up in all the best traditions of a Christian gentleman’s 
household in Cappadocia. We shall find him holding exactly 
the same views as all the other great Christian doctors, but 
stating them with a certain apologetic tone, and deprecating 
with a painful sense of contrast the laxity actually prevalent 

in Christian society. 

Early in his career, while organising the monasteries of 
Pontus, he drew up the Lthivea (Moralza), a code of “ Christian 
Institutes,” as they have been called. This compilation for the 
most part gives the moral teaching of Christianity in the very 
words of the New Testament. The words which are 8. Basil’s 
own are to be found chiefly in the rules or canons (Ὅρος, 
Regula), which as summings up precede the citation of the 
passages on which they are based. In the 73rd section of the 
Kihica there are two such rules or summings up, which are 
important. The first of these lays down that “the husband 
must not separate from the wife, nor the wife from the 
Grounds of husband, except on detection in fornication (εἰ μὴ τις ἂν ἐπὶ 
separation. πορνείᾳ ἁλῷ), or hindrance in piety.” It bases on the texts 
S. Matthew v. 31, 32; S. Luke xiv. 26; S. Matthew xix. 9; 
1 Cor. vu. 10. There are here several points worthy of notice. 
Separation of life is permitted not only on the ground of 
fornication, but also on that of hindrance in piety. The wife is 


1 Sozomen informs us that in his time the ascetic writings usually attributed 
to 8. Basil were ascribed by some to Eustathius of Sebaste. As Eustathius was 
a contemporary and friend of S Basil, the date of these passages would not in 
any case be much affected. Olv 


= 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 299 


allowed to put away her husband on each of these grounds, as 
well as the husband the wife. Ilopve(a to S. Basil is post- 
nuptial adultery ; for separation on account of it is permitted πορνεία 
to the wife as well as to the husband, and it 1s unknown to is adultery. 
any code that prenuptial fornication on the part of the man 
should be a ground for the dissolution of marriage. That 
πορνεία With 8S. Basil means adultery is clear also from the 
wording “if any be taken in πορνείᾳ, which cannot well be 
made to refer to the past. 

The second of the rules quoted is important for the question 
of remarriage after divorce. The only text here cited by 
S. Basil is the difficult passage 8. Matthew xix. 9. The ru/e or 5. Matthew 
summing up deduced from the text is the absolute prohibition ** * 
of remarriage under all circumstances: “It is not lawful for 
him that hath put away his own wife to marry another, nor for 
her that is put away from a husband to be married to another.”?! 
The text of S. Matthew xix. 9, as we have it in the printed 
editions of 8. Basil, has the clause cai γαμήσῃ ἄλλην. Whether 
this reading was before 8. Basil, or whether his later copyists 
have altered the reading, is not apparent; but what is apparent 
is, that in the text as 8. Basil had it, he saw no exception 
sanctioned to the great universal rule that there must be no 
remarriage after divorce. 

A few years later, probably soon after his ordination as priest, 
which took place in 364 Α.Ρ., S. Basil wrote and preached the 
Hexaemeron, a course of homilies on the Creation. He passes 
from the creation of the marine animals to a somewhat forced 
and fanciful digression about the married state, and in the 
course of it teaches that a wife should “on no plea consent to 
tear asunder the union.” 

We come next to the so-called Canons of δ. Basil, a body of inequality 
regulations which came to be received in the Church as of the 9 "eh 


ment in the 
highest authority. They were not in the first instance put este) οἱ 
forth by 8. Basil with any view to such employment, but formed of women. 
the subject of certain letters which he wrote in 374 A.D. to 
S. Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium. These letters are to be 


found in the series of 8. Basil’s Epistles, numbered respectively 


1S. Basil, Ethica, Regula 73, ο. 2. 2 Ibid. Hexaemeron, vii. § 5. 


Laxity of 
Christian 
society. 


300 HOLY MATRIMONY 


188, 199, and 217. In the 9th Canon he reiterates what we 
have already seen to be his judgment that, by our Lord’s 
decision, the wife was equally justified with the husband in 
putting away for fornication; and that the husband was not 
justified in putting away, except for fornication (παρεκτὸς λόγου 
πορνείας). Although, however, 8S. Basil is clear about our 
Lord’s decision, he is perplexed to find that the “custom” of 
the Christian community is not in accordance with it. On the 
one hand, “in respect of the wives we find great strictness ” ; 
husbands are expected by the custom of the time to put away 
adulterous wives. Texts of Scripture are adduced, as the saying 
of S. Paul that “he that is joined to an harlot is one body,” 
and the Septuagint version of Proverbs xviii. 22: “He that 
retaineth an adulteress is foolish and impious.” So far the 
feeling is in accordance with the spirit of the earliest 
Christianity. But in the reference to Jeremiah to justify the 
husband in repelling a penitent adulteress on her return, we 
see an abandonment of the earlier Christian charity in favour 
of the sternness of the Roman secular law, and of the common 
usage. This is the attitude as regards the erring wife in the 
time of 8. Basil. On the other hand, “custom enjoins that 
husbands even living in adultery, and going on in whoredoms, 
be retained by their wives.” ὃ. Basil is of opinion that by the 
Divine teaching the woman should have equal freedom with 
the man to claim separation of life; but the practice of 
Christian society in this matter has come to be in no wise 
different from the practice of the outside community and of 
the Roman law. If the husband offend, the wife is certainly 
not required, and is barely permitted by the custom of the day 
to put him away; “if the cause be his living in unchastity, we 
have not this rule in our ecclesiastical custom.” He feels that 
in the face of this general attitude of Christian society, which 
makes it so little justifiable for a wife to put away her husband, 
whatever be the cause; and which in consequence treats the 
husband so put away as free to avail himself of the secular 
law and marry again without Christian condemnation (for this 
seems to be implied); he is not prepared to visit the parties 
with the penance due to adultery. “So that I know not 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 301 


whether she that cohabits with the man whom his wife hath 
put away can be ‘called an adulteress.’” There is the some- 
what parallel case, he notices, of the innocent husband whose 
adulterous wife has gone to another man. Here too, by the 
ecclesiastical custom, “the forsaken husband is pardoned, and 
she that cohabits with him is not condemned.” It was under- 
stood in Christian society, doubtless not only in Cappadocia, 
but in that wider Eastern Christendom with which 8. Basil was 
acquainted, that the innocent husband who contracted a fresh 
marriage was together with his new partner to be admitted to 
union and communion, and not to be branded with the penance 
of the adulterer. When the husband put away his wife without 
justification, and married another, the custom of the day had 
another voice. “If, however, the husband depart from his. 
wife, and betake himself to another, both he is an adulterer, 
because he maketh her to commit adultery, and she who co- 
habits with him is an adulteress, because she transferred another 
woman’s husband to herself.’? 

This passage from 8. Basil is of great significance for the Concession 
proper understanding of what was going on in the Christian coe τ τ 
Church. From the point of view of principle, of “our Lord’s 
decision,’ of the theology of the subject, as we might say, 

S. Basil is as clear as the day. He stands where all the other 

ereat Christian doctors stand. He knows nothing of permitted He doesnot 
remarriage after divorce; but he is perplexed and hesitating as heel 
to anything like penal action. In the sixty years which have ene of 
elapsed since Constantine avowed his conviction of the truth but με 
of Christianity, the world has crowded into the Church till the avarice 
current morality of Christians has cast itself rather in the Penalty. 
mould of the secular code than in that of the law of Christ. 

As the secular code would exempt from all blame in remarriage 

both the man who has put away a guilty wife, and the man 

whom the wife has put away, so, at least in the Eastern portion 

of the Empire, does Christian society. Here is a change indeed. 

The Church has been so far converted by the world, and that 

so completely that 5. Basil practically declines the conflict. 
“Things being as they are,” he seems to say, “let us not stir a 


1 §. Basil, Canon 9. 


Ὁ» 


302 HOLY MATRIMONY 


muddy stream.” Looking back in the light of all the subse- 
quent sad laxity of the Eastern Church, we may feel that he 
was wrong; that if it was true, as he taught, that “it is not 
lawful for him that hath put away his own wife to marry 
another, nor for her that is put away from a husband to be 
married to another,’? then it was his duty not only to teach it, 
but to enforce it, though the heavens fell. But let those judge 
S. Basil who know what it is in the present day to face an 
almost overwhelming consensus of English society on this very 
subject. Such men know that there is needed for right action 
not only faith and obedience, but a clear perception of the great 
issues involved. Failing this, the promptings of individual 
charity combine with what seems the obvious present ex- 
-pediency of concession to lead the clergy now to take up 
exactly the attitude taken up by 8. Basil. They would decide: 
“Let there be nothing penal; above all, let there be no excom- 
munication. There shall be no approval, but let the conduct 
of the parties be between themselves and Gop.” The Eastern 
Churches are the commentary on this attitude, which those who 
will may find written broadly across the page of history. 
No penalty In the 21st Canon, an extract from which comes next in the 
ἘΠ of Passages cited above, the same perplexity is expressed as in the 
aman with 9th. There is no canon, says 8. Basil, for bringing to punish- 
“abound, ment an adulterous husband, “if the sin take place with one 
not bound in marriage.” As has been noticed, this to the 
toman law was not adultery but stwprum ; and S. Basil indi- 
cates that Christian society has come to take the same view of 
it. On the other hand the same society insists that “he that 
Anadul- Yretaineth an adulteress is senseless and profane.’ “And so the 
renee ™2Y wife must receive her husband coming home from his unclean- 
retained. ness, but the husband must send away her who is defiled from 
his house. Of all this, again, it is not easy to give account; 
but custom has thus prevailed.” ? 
Absenceof The 31st Canon lays down that the absence of the husband 
Hares does not justify the remarriage of the wife unless she is 
of re- persuaded of his death. “If she cohabit with another, she 


marriage . ᾿ 
δὲ lea commits adultery.” The 36th Canon asserts the same even of 


1 §, Basil, Hthica. Regula lxxiii. 2. 2 Ibid. Canon 21. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 303 


the wives of soldiers, though Ὁ. Basil is of opinion that more 
allowance should be made in their case, as the presumption of 
death is greater. 

"Fhe line taken by S. Basil in the matter of absence 
without tidings is a remarkable instance of the value of 
firmness on points of principle. The secular law permitted 
divorce with remarriage on this ground, but the Canon of 
S. Basil now referred to induced the later Eastern Church to 
take the stricter view; and the ground of absence without 
tidings, with the related grounds of captivity and slavery, are 
the only instances of opposition made by the Churches of the 
East to the grounds of divorce which were specified in the legisla- 
tion of Justinian. The result is that the 9180 Canon of 8. Basil 
is at this moment the law of the Christian East in this matter. 

The 39th Canon is important as meeting the sentiment, not Time does 
confined to one age, that lapse of time may take away the ΤῊΣ ὍΣΣ 
adulterous character from a union confessedly adulterous at rane ee 
the beginning. “She who lives with an adulterer,’ says an union, 
S. Basil, “is an adulteress all the time (πάντα τὸν xpovov).” 

The 46th Canon treats the case of a woman who has un- 
wittingly contracted an adulterous union by marrying a man 
whose wife was absent. She has committed fornication (here 
again ἐπόρνευσε refers to post-nuptial adultery), but unwittingly. 

She may marry, for she is not bound; but 8. Basil would, under 
the circumstances, prefer to see her remain unmarried. 

In the 48th Canon he says that a woman who is forsaken The 
ought to remain unmarried. In the case treated in the 46th mae 
Canon his words were, “It is beéter if she remain thus.” In the remain 
case of the woman whose husband, though he has forsaken her, ὑπ es 
is living, he says, “in my judgment, she is bownd to remain 
(i.e. unmarried).” His reason is most cogent. “If our Lord 
said, ‘Whoso leaveth his wife, except for the cause of forni- 
cation, causeth her to commit adultery, by calling her an 
adulteress, He hath excluded her from union with another, it 
being impossible for the husband to be guilty, as causing 
adultery, and the wife to be without blame, denominated as 
she is an adulteress by the Lord on account of her connection 
with another man.” 


Penances. 


The 
treatise on 
SSrie) Un= 
defiledness 
in 
Virginity.” 


304 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The 58th and 77th Canons prescribe the penances due to 
those adulterers who in S. Basil’s judgment have deserved 
them. The 58th is concerned with the man “who has com- 
mitted adultery,” by which appears to be intended ‘the 
corruption of another man’s wife. Such an one is to be visited 
with fifteen years of exclusion from Communion, of which four 
are to be spent among the Mourners, five among the Hearers, 
four among the Substrati, and two among the Consistentes. 
The 77th Canon is concerned with the man who without cause 
deserts his wife and marries another. “By the Lord’s decree 
he incurs the sentence of adultery. And it was enacted by 
our Fathers that such should be Mourners for a year, Hearers 
for two years, Substrati three years, and in the seventh year 
should take their stand with the Faithful: and so be deemed 
worthy of the Offering, if with tears they repent.” 

There is some doubt whether the treatise On True Undefiled- 
ness in Virginity is rightly ascribed to S. Basil. Canon 
Venables says of it that it is “rejected by Garnier on internal 
evidence, but generally accepted.”! It is addressed to Letoius, 
bishop of Melitene, to whom also S. Gregory Nyssen wrote his 
Epistola canonica. The date is not therefore much affected by 
any doubts as to 8. Basil’s authorship. Garnier’s arguments 
are that (1) the style differs from that of 8S. Basil, (2) that 
some of the matter is prurient rather than edifying, and (3) 
that Letoius did not attain the episcopal dignity till after 
S. Basil’s death. On the other hand 8. Gregory Nazianzen 
appears to refer to this treatise as 8. Basil’s. 

The writer argues that a consecrated virgin who forsakes her 
vows and marries is really guilty of adultery. It is useless 
to plead that there has been the legal solemnization with all 
the usual outward circumstances. All that, he says, might 
accompany the remarriage of a woman whose true husband 
was living, but it would not make it a marriage before Gop. 
“Tf this marriage be thus manifest by witnesses and processions 
and in every way, but her husband be not, I say, dead; then 
such an one commits adultery, committing adultery thus 
throughout her life, if her husband continue to live; or rather 


1 Dictionary of Christian Biography, Art. ‘‘ Basilius of Caesareia.” ~~ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 305 


abandonedly playing the harlot for the enjoyment of pleasure, 
but also, because her husband is living, committing adultery in 
transgression of the law.” 

The views of the great Eastern doctor may be summarized 
as follows. Like all other Christian teachers he permits the 
putting away of a wife for adultery, and would seem to have 
no quarrel with the custom of his day which required such 
putting away; but he holds that the wife should be equally at 
liberty to put away an adulterous husband, and laments the 
current feeling which denied this liberty. The justifying cause 
is post-nuptial sin, which may, however, be not only literal 
adultery, but “hindrance in piety.’ He has no approval of the 
remarriage of the husband after divorce, whether he have put 
away his wife for adultery, or have been put away for a like 
cause by his wife. In neither case, however, is he prepared, in 
the face of public feeling, to assign any term of penance and 
exclusion from communion. In referring to 8. Matthew xix. 9 
he does not appeal to it as justifying marriage in the case of 
divorce for adultery. 

Admitted practice has not commonly long to wait before it S. Epi- 
finds apologists. S. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, pare 
was born perhaps between 310 A.D. and 320 A.D., and died in 
404 a.D. He is rightly esteemed as a zealous champion of the 
faith; his greatest work being the Panarion, in which he 
undertakes to refute the heresies of his day. In this work he 
distinctly states that it is lawful for a man, who is living in 
separation “for whatever ground—fornication, or adultery, or Admits 
other evil cause,” to marry again. “Him the word of Gop ΕΣ eae 
censures not, though he be joined to a second wife (or a wife to divorce. 
a second husband), neither doth it declare them cast out from 
the Church, and from life, but bears with him by reason of his 
infirmity.” Thus 8. Epiphanius is the second Christian writer,’ 
and the first theologian, who distinctly justifies remarriage 
after divorce. He does so alike in the case of the woman and 
in that of the man; nor can it be inferred from the words he 
uses that he would be more stringent with the guilty than with 
the innocent. In the turmoil of speculative beliefs in wh’ch 


1 The first being Lactantius. 
xX 


S. Gregory 
Nazianzen. 


The 
Roman law 
and the 
conven- 
tional 
morality 
both at 
fault. 


306 HOLY MATRIMONY 


S. Epiphanius spent so large a measure of his energies, he hardly 
seems to have probed the theology of marriage. In the passage 
cited it is in condemning the rigorism of those who disallowed 
second marriages even to the widowed that he sanctions the 
existing allowance of second marriages even to the divorced. 
That this allowance is more than an obtter dictum is improbable; 
but how far thought out or not, the words are unmistakeable. 
S. Epiphanius, a Bishop of the Church of Cyprus, fully admits 
remarriage after divorce. 

S. Gregory Nazianzen, bishop (970 A.D.—390 A.D.) of Sasima, 
and of Constantinople, the friend of S. Basil, is the next 
writer from whom we have quoted. His father, also named 
Gregory, was in early life attached to the sect of Hypsistarn, 
but was converted to the Catholic faith, married a pious lady 
named Nonna, and was soon after chosen and consecrated 
bishop of Nazianzus. His episcopate lasted forty-five years. 
The younger Gregory would only know his father in the days 
when he was a respected Catholic bishop; and the traditions 
of his home would doubtless be the best traditions of Christian 
married life. The long extract which has been cited is taken 
from a sermon on 8. Matthew xix., which 8. Gregory preached 
αὖ Constantinople before the emperor Theodosius the Great. 
This gives his statement a special interest. He is not afraid 
to remark to the Emperor upon the great discrepancy between 
Christian precept on the one hand and the secular law and 
common usage on the other; and it may well be that such 
teaching as that of 8. Gregory had no little share in leading 
Theodosius to legislate, as we have seen that he did, in the 
direction of restraining the license of divorce. S. Gregory 
notices that two things are wrong, viz. (1) custom, and (2) law. 
He says: “I see in most men a tendency to error, and in 
their law unfairness and inconsistency.”? Like 5. Basil, he is 
unable to accept strictness of discipline for women, and un- 
restrained license for men. “ While a wife planning mischief 
against. her husband’s bed is an adulteress, and incurs sharp 
legal penalties, is a husband, sinning against his wife by 





1 §. Epiphanius, Panarion, lix. ec. 4. 
2S. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio, xxxvii, § 5. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 307 


fornication, irresponsible ?” Whether this inequality is regarded Claims 
a Pe + " equality of 
as a custom of the Christians, or as an “enactment” of the discipline 
secular law, he is equally opposed to it. “I receive not this f*menand 
: P ἰς women. 
enactinent, 1 praise not this custom. 
Another matter in which the secular law and the teaching of 
Christ are at variance is to be found in the recognized grounds 
of divorce. “The law indeed allows the bill of divorce for every 
cause. But Christ not for every cause; rather He allows Divergence 
: .,_ bet 
separation only from the unchaste; all other things He bids the secu 


the secular 
men patiently to endure.” In speaking of the law S. Gregory 2n4 the 


: 5 2 Christian 
may be speaking of the Jewish law, but it seems more probable 1aw of 
that the law of Rome, which is here at least as lax as the “°° 
Jewish law, is what he has in mind. The daw, anyhow, is 
altogether wrong. There is only one rightful ground for 
putting away. For that ground there is a reason. It is not 
a reason which affects the venculwm; but the reason we have 
already met with from the earliest age of Christianity, the 
confusio prolis, “And the reason about the unchaste is her 
making the progeny spurious; but in all other things let us be 
patient and unmoved.” He specifies several offences which 
should be borne. “Do not thou rashly cut off; do not put 
away.” 8. Gregory, though in this passage he is evidently 
commenting on 8. Matthew xix. 9, does not quote the actual 
words of the verse, and we are not therefore able to say with  . 
certainty what his text was. But he makes a remarkable s. Matt. 
statement, which probably refers to the verse. “It is not clear *** 
which side is so endangered, the divorcing party or the 
divorced.” If the passage ran as we have surmised, ὃς ἃν 
ἀπολύσῃ THY γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ μοιχᾶται, the want 
of clearness probably lay in the meaning of the word μοιχᾶται. 

It might mean that the husband would commit adultery ; and 
it might mean that he would cause the wife to commit adultery. 

Ὁ. Gregory Nazianzen is thus no less opposed to the laxity of 
the law of the empire in the matter of divorce than to the 
inequality of its treatment of men and women. A woman 
may be put away for unchastity, but it is because of the 
danger of spurious offspring. Even in this case he says 
nothing of remarriage. It is not indeed possible to assert 


>€ 


A case of 
proposed 
divorce. 


The 
Apostolical 
Consti- 
tutions. 


308 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that S. Gregory forbids remarriage after divorce for adultery ; 
but as little can it be asserted that he sanctions 1. 

In the collection of the letters of 5. Gregory Nazianzen 
there are two letters numbered 144 and 145, on the subject 
of a proposed divorce. They are addressed respectively to 
Olympius, the prefect of the province, and to Verianus, a 
Christian layman apparently of S. Gregory’s diocese, or in the 
circle of his personal acquaintance, since he speaks of him as 
his “son.” It seems that Verianus had a daughter, whom he 
was anxious to see divorced from her husband for some reason 
which does not appear. He accordingly made application to 
Olympius, the prefect of the province, for a divorce to be 
eranted. Olympius before proceeding to any definite action 
saw fit to refer the case to 8S. Gregory, not as a magistrate but 
as the Bishop of the Diocese (Οὐ yap ὥς λογιστὴν, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐπί- 
σκοπον δηλαδὴ προεβάλετο). S. Gregory, in an interview 
with the lady, discovered from her tears that although she 
had from a sense of shame expressed herself in her father’s 
presence as desirous of a divorce, she was nevertheless sincerely 
attached to her husband. 8. Gregory accordingly explains the 
state of affairs in these two letters, one to the prefect and the 
other to the father, recommending that the difficulties be over- 
looked and the proceedings for divorce not pushed to completion. 
In giving this recommendation to Olympius he reminds him 
that the divorce sought is a thing “altogether repugnant” to 
the laws of Christians though not to the civil code. 

The Apostolical Constitutions, which appear to be of Eastern 
origin, and probably represent Eastern Christianity in the fourth 
century, have a passage of doubtful meaning: “If any younger 
woman, having lived a short time with her husband, and lost 
him by death, or by any other cause, shall abide by herself, 
having the gift of widowhood, she will prove blessed.” The 
only cause other than death by which a woman can lose her 
husband is separation, whether by legal divorce or otherwise. 
Does this passage then mean that a Christian woman who has 
divorced her husband, or who has been divorced, is at liberty to 
marry again by the Christian laws? Not necessarily. Even 


1 8. Gregory Nazianzen, Epistle 144. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 309 


the lax Christian customs of the fourth century in the East, of 
which 8. Basil complained, are not said to have recognised the 
remarriage of the woman, though they were indulgent to the 
man. That the woman could marry, so far as the secular law 
was concerned, is nevertheless obvious. In remarking therefore, 
parenthetically, that divoreées as well as widows may find a 
blessing in the single life, the Constitutions cannot be under- 
stood as necessarily recognising the liberty of remarriage in 
the case of such women as a Christian liberty. The right of 
remarriage in the case of the woman has, however, been 
constantly recognised by the Eastern Churches in certain 
circumstances, and their practice may have the support of a 
considerable antiquity. It may be said that from the middle 
of the fourth century the Church of the East definitely tends 
towards the laxer line in the matter of divorce and remarriage. 

In one case, indeed, the woman might be divorced and re- 
marry, and break no rule of the Church. The woman who was 
married to a non-Christian, and whose husband rejected her on 
her conversion to Christianity, would find the Christian Church 
on the whole agreed that she was free to remarry, “only in the 
Lord.” Not being married by Christian marriage, she would 
not be regarded as bound by an indissoluble bond. The subject 
of such divorces will be considered in the next chapter. If the 
Apostolical Constitution before us has regard to these cases all 
difficulty falls. 

A witness to the terrible laxity of the morals of marriage 1n g Asterius, 
the Churches of the East is 8. Asterius, bishop of Amasea in 
Pontus (fl. 400 a.p.). He warns Christians, “who trade in 
wives, who change them as garments from time to time,” “ that 
marriages are severed by nothing save death and adultery.” 
Adultery then, in the view of S. Asterius, severs marriage, and agutitery 
presumably admits remarriage. ae 

Like 8S. Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen, 8. Asterius condemns 
the deplorable license of unchaste hving, which many men 
among the Christians appear to have allowed themselves, not 
ashamed to take advantage of the unequal provisions of the 
secular law. In such condemnation he will not be understood 





1S. Asterius, Homily v. on S. Matthew xix. 


S. Timothy 
of 
Alexandria 


Enigma- 
tical 
judgment. 


S. John 
Chry- 
sostom, 


310 HOLY MATRIMONY 


to include the case of a husband whose wife has committed 
adultery. 85. Asterius says that with such a man he has all 
sympathy. “1 will praise him who flees from the designing 
one, who has severed the bond by which he was bound to an 
asp or a viper.” 

S. Timothy of Alexandria occupied the throne of that 
patriarchate from 381 A.D. to 385 a.p. He framed eighteen 
“canonical answers” to questions which had been submitted 
to him by his clergy, and these answers were subsequently 
incorporated into the Canon law of the East. The fifteenth 
of the questions dealt with puts the following case: “If a 
man’s wife become mad, and that to the extent of having to be 
put in irons, and the husband say, ‘I am not able to contain,’ 
and desire to take another wife, ought he to take another or 
not?” §. Timothy’s reply is most remarkable. “In this 
matter,’ he says, ‘‘adultery comes in; and I have nothing, 
and can find nothing, to reply concerning it.” The answer 
may perhaps be read to mean that the patriarch would not 
suffer such remarriage for a moment; but perhaps a more 
probable explanation is that which understands an attitude 
similar to S. Basil’s. He seems to say, “As far as I can judge, 
this remarriage is adultery; but public feeling is against me, 
and I will neither sanction nor condemn.” 

S. John Chrysostom—probably born in 347 A.D., the son of 
Secundus, who was a magister militum (στρατηλάτης), and as 
such one of the eight who commanded the imperial armies— 
represents a family of high distinction in the Empire. His 
father, however, died while the son was still an infant, and the 
early life of S. Chrysostom was passed under the loving care of 
his young widowed mother Anthusa, who devoted herself to her 
son’s education. Perhaps the echoes of the outside world of 
dissolute Antioch hardly found their way within that holy 
home, whether in the earlier years spent in rhetorical study or 
in that later time when, yielding to the prayer of his mother 
that he should not make his home in a monastery, he chose 
instead to make a monastery of his home. In later years, 
indeed, during his troubled tenure of the chair of Constantinople, 
he can hardly have failed to have been brought face to face with 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE tel 


the painful realities of Christian laxity. However this may be, 

Ὁ. Chrysostom does not seem to have been troubled in the same 

way as 8. Basil, 8. Gregory Nazianzen, and 8. Asterius, by the 

sense of the incompatibility of Christian teaching with the 

actual practice of the Christian.communities. He is oppressed 

by no necessity of irregular concession to weakness; and, if 
anything, he rather errs on the side of strictness in representing 

the bond of marriage as a constraining bondage which Christians 

would do well to avoid by the maintenance of the celibate life. 

Thus, in his treatise On Virginity he says that “the husband, 

though he have a wife more intolerable than all besides, must No escape 
needs be content with his bondage, and cannot find any release ΠΟῪΣ of 
or escape from this arbitrary sway..... What can be more ™lage. 
bitter than this bondage ?”? 

He understands in common with all other Christian teachers A wife may 
that a wife may be put away for πορνείας In the Homily Sent tat 
against those who fasted with the Jews he says, “If he have πορνεία, 
one who is a harlot (πόρνην) and adulteress (μοιχαλίδα) he is 
not forbidden to cast her out. For ‘ whosoever (saith He) shall 
put away his wife except for the cause of πορνεία, maketh her 
to commit adultery.’ So that on account of πορνεία it is lawful 
to put away.” It will be noticed that while the words πόρνην 
and μοιχαλίδα in this passage are distinguished, the sin of the 
μοιχαλίς is understood to justify the putting her away, and is 
not less understood to do so for the reason that “on account of 
πορνεία it is lawful to put away.” Though 8. Chrysostom uses 
two words he appears to have the same sin in view. That sin, 
regarded from the point of view of its promiscuity, and of the 
confusio prolis, justifies the use of the word πόρνη; regarded as 
unfaithfulness it more naturally calls forth the word μοιχαλέίς. 

While 5. Chrysostom is thus clear that it is lawful to put but re- 
away a wife for πορνεία, he nowhere uses language which can τ ποσοῖς 
be fairly construed as permitting remarriage to persons so Permitted. 
separated. On the other hand he repeatedly uses expressions 
of the strongest possible character as to the indissolubility of 
the marriage bond. “‘ Let her remain unmarried or be recon- 
ciled to her husband.’ .... ‘What then if he will never be 


1 §. Chrysostom, De Virginitate, § 28, 


312 HOLY MATRIMONY 


reconciled δ᾿ one may ask. Thou hast one more mode of release 
and deliverance. What is that? Await his death. For as the 
(consecrated) virgin may not marry because her Spouse liveth 
alway, and is immortal; so to her who hath been married it is 
then only lawful when her husband is dead.” And farther on: 
“Seest thou the constraint, the inexorable bondage, the chain 
which compasses both parties 91 

Remarriage after divorce had been permitted to the Jews lest 
worse should come. “If he had compelled the retaining one 
hated in the house, the husband in his hatred would have 
assassinated her; for such is the Jewish nation. .... Where- 
fore he conceded the lesser ill, uprooting the greater.”* Our 
Lord had restored the rule of marriage to a greater simplicity 
by precluding the putting away of a wife for any cause but 
fornication. This was permitted, “since [else] it had come 
round again to the same thing. For if he had commanded to 
keep her in the house, though defiling herself with many, He 
would have made the matter issue again in adultery.” Here is 
the reason, the contemporary polyandry, a reason which does 
not necessarily affect the vinewlum. As regards the character 
of the permitted putting away, it is to 8. Chrysostom the anti- 
thesis of keeping her in the house, and so being guilty of 
connivance. ‘There is no hint of the solution of the bond. 

Our Lord restored the original law, giving us the strength of 
the Spirit to enable us to keep it. That law 8. Chrysostom 
apparently understands to bar any divorcee which would permit 
remarriage. ‘“ Whereas if He had willed (Adam) to put her 
away and introduce another, having made but one man, He 
would have formed many women. As it is, by the course both 
of His creation and of His legislation, He has shewn that one 
man must abide with one woman continually, and never break 
from her.”* And again, “Then having quoted the ancient law, 
authorized as it was both by words and deeds, and having 
recommended it to respect by the thoughts of the Giver; with 
authority, after that, He Himself too interprets and gives the 
law, saying, ‘Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.’4 


1'§. Chrysostom, De Virginitate, § 40. 2 Ibid. Hom. in δι Matt. 17. 
3 Ibid. Hom. in 5. Matt. 62. 4 Ibid. Hom. in δ. Matt, 62. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE “35 bers 


As therefore to mutilate the body is impious, so to divorce a 
wife is against all law.” It will be observed that the premises 
here admit of no exception in the conclusion. 

Proceeding to quote the much-disputed verse δ. Matthew 5. Matt 
xix. 9, S. Chrysostom, in the printed editions, reads the clause τσ 
and shall marry another ; but although this clause would have 
considerably modified his argument if it implied the permission 
of remarriage after divorce for πορνεία, he entirely ignores it. 
Quoting the same verse in his Homily on the Parable of the 
Unmerciful Servant, he omits the clause, and reads ποιξὶ αὐτὴν 
μοιχευθῆνα. In all probability this was the text before 
S. Chrysostom, and the text as given in the Commentary may 
have been altered by a copyist. What is quite plain is that the 
verse suggested to 8. Chrysostom no exception on which it 
was worth his while to comment. On the other hand, the 
comment he does make when he has occasion to explain the 
remark of the disciples, that “if the case of the man be go, it 
is not good to marry,’ is as follows: “For it did seem an 
intolerable burden to retain a wife full of all mischief, and 
to endure an unruly wild beast shut up constantly with you 
in the house.” It may be concluded that 8. Chrysostom had no 
thought of remarriage in any case. 

In the Homily commonly known as De Libello Repudii, in The — 
a continued argument he maintains 8. Paul’s teaching that sane 
“a wife is bound by the law as long as her husband Hvet ns eens 
but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married after 
to whom she will.” He nowhere in this Homily specifies any “Y°"* 
exception to this rule. To the miserable confusion of re- 
marriages after divorce he alludes in the following terms: 
“With what eyes will he behold the other’s wife, now his own. 

Nay, rather, such an one cannot properly be called the wife 
either of the one or of the other. For the adulteress is no 
man’s wife; for she hath trampled on her covenant with him, . 
and unto thee she came without the due legal sanction.” 
Bishop Cosin has argued from the words, “the adulteress is no 
man’s wife,” that in 8. Chrysostom’s estimate the bond of 
marriage with the first husband no longer existed. A perusal 
of the whole passage will shew how little there is to support 


A polluted 
wife not 
to be 
restored, 


The sin of 
the man 
no less 
adultery 
than that 
of the 
woman. 


Summary 
of the 
teaching 


of S. Chry- 


sostom. 


Theodoret. 


Testimony 
not 
consistent ; 


314 HOLY MATRIMONY 


this contention. §. Chrysostom is simply emphasizing the 
terrible inconveniences of this kind of transgression. 

From the approval which 8. Chrysostom gives to the rule of 
Deuteronomy, that “her former husband shall not be able to 
take her back after she is polluted,” of which he says that it is 
“in entire harmony with Christ,’ it would seem that on the 
point of the restoration of the penitent wife he was more at 
one with the common feeling of his day than with the mercy of 
the earliest Christians. He is, however, very outspoken in his 
condemnation of the popular view that what was criminal in a 
woman was permissible in a man, thus following the protests of 
Ὁ. Basil and 8. Gregory Nazianzen. In the Homily on the 
passage, “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife,” 
he combats the popular view that the sin of a married man 
with an unmarried woman was not adultery. “Tell me not 
now of those laws from without, which drag adulterous women 
into a court of justice, and exact penalties from them, while 
they do not exact penalties in the case of men who, though 
having wives, corrupt themselves with harlots; but I will recite 
to thee the law of Gop, which is equally indignant with the 
woman and with the man, and calls the act adultery.” 

Summing up the teaching of 8. Chrysostom, we find that he 
like other Christian teachers held that a husband might put 
away his wife for πορνεία ; in πορνεία he seems to include post- 
nuptial unfaithfulness ; he does not appear to admit remarriage 
in any case during the lifetime of the partner; he quotes with 
approval the Old Testament rule that a polluted wife was not 
to be received again by her husband; and as regards the 
meaning of 8. Matthew xix. 9 he makes no reference to the 
clause, and shall marry another, as bearing upon the question 
of remarriage. 

Conspicuous among the Eastern theologians of the fifth 
century was another bishop born and bred at Antioch, the 
learned and kindly Theodoret. It is not easy to state with 
confidence which side he took on the subject of remarriage 
after divorce for adultery. In the treatise known as Graecarwm 
Affectionum Curatio he says: “The Creator of nature, inasmuch 
as in the very framing of man’s nature He formed from the 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 315 


beginning one man and one woman only, forbids also the 
dissolving of marriage: and one only cause of dissolution has 

He allowed, that which indeed tears the bond in sunder 
(διασπῶσαν τὴν CevyAnyv),” and again, “but if she violate the 

laws of marriage and look towards another, then He commands 

to loose the bond (λύειν τὴν ζεύγλην).Σ If Theodoret here uses 

the word ζεύγλη in the technical sense of ‘bond’ or ‘vinculwm’ one 
familiar to later theology, these phrases mean that the persons Po°-e8° κα 
divorced for fornication were at liberty to remarry. On the marriage; 
whole perhaps it is more probable than not that this was 
Theodoret’s view when writing this treatise. 

At the same time there are other passages in Theodoret’s 
writings in which he appears to follow 8. Chrysostom, and 
which do not readily fall in with the possibility of remarriage other 
in any case during the lifetime of the partner. Commenting Peer, 
on 8. Paul’s words, “ Let her remain unmarried or be reconciled 
to her husband,” he says: “And he strives indeed to keep the 
bond of marriage unbroken (ἀῤῥαγῆ φυλάξαι τοῦ γάμου τὴν 
ζεύγλην), but condescending to men’s weakness, he puts the 
person separately himself under a law of continency, in this 
way also forbidding the dissolution of marriage (κωλύων τὴν τοῦ 
γάμου διαίρεσιν). For by barring connexion with another he 
compels the party, whichever it be, to return to the former 
marriage.”? Here it would appear more probable that 
Theodoret did not admit of remarriage after divorce in any 
case. Again, following ὃ. Chrysostom, he maintains that 
divorce is not recognised by the true law of marriage. “ But 
5. Paul hearkened to his Lord’s teaching, which told him that 
Moses gave .the law for the Jews’ hardness of heart, but that 
the law of nature had added no such provision. For one only 
man, saith He, and one only woman did Gop create, by the 
very mode of their formation laying down His law of 
marriage.’? Here again divorce appears to be altogether 
excluded. 

. It would be no great matter for wonder if at a time when 


1 Theodoret, Graecarum A ffectionwm Curatio, Disp. iv. 
2 Theodoret, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, vii. 10, 11. 
3 Theodoret, Commentary on Romans, vii. 


Relaxation 
of discipline 
in the 
East. 


Re- 
marriage 
after 
divorce for 
adultery 
an open 
question. 


The 
stricter 
standard 
of the 
West. 


316 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the current Christian morality of the East was setting strongly 
in the direction of laxity, some of the teachers of the day 
were found expressing themselves at one time in the sense of 
the older strictness, and at another in that of the modern 
indulgence. Possibly this consideration may give the true key 
to Theodoret’s utterances. He was as a teacher wanting in 
originality ; and such teachers are seldom entirely consistent 
with themselves. 

Before leaving Theodoret it may be noted that whatever his 
views about remarriage, the one cause which in his opinion 
justified putting away was adultery. He explains παρεκτὸς 
λόγου πορνείας thus: “if she violate the laws of marriage, and 
look towards another.”4 

A review of the writings of 8. Basil, 8. Gregory Nazianzen, 
Ὁ. Asterius, 8. Timothy of Alexandria, ὃ. Chrysostom, and 
Theodoret has, in fact, afforded a review of the teaching and 
practice of the Eastern Churches during the fourth and fifth 
centuries. It is only too apparent that a general relaxation of 
the first strictness of the laws of marriage had found place. 
All the great teachers of the time are found protesting against 
this relaxation, not less S. Basil and ὃ. Asterius than 8. Gregory 
Nazianzen and 8. Chrysostom. On one point, however, and 
that the point of most vital importance, there has ceased to be 
unanimity of opinion. Whether remarriage should or should 
not be admitted after divorce for adultery has become an open 
question. Some teachers condemn all such remarriage, some 
admit it under protest, some justify it. Meanwhile the actual 
life of Eastern Christendom seems to sweep on in a flood of 
little-restrained practice, made all too easy by the facilities of 
the secular law; and the teachers, as it were, stand by, striving 
as far as may be to reconcile consciences with facts, but little 
able to stem the stream which flows about them. 

If we turn now to the great teachers of the West at this 
period, we shall find a markedly different atmosphere from 
that which had become prevalent in the East. Clear and 
definite in their conviction of the indissoluble character of the 
marriage bond, they are not even troubled to any great extent 





4 Theodoret, Graecarum A ffectionwm Cwratio, Disp. ix. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE ΕΒ. 


by practical difficulties. How would 8. Basil and S. Gregory 
Nazianzen have rejoiced if they could have written of the 
Christians of Cappadocia as 8. Augustine writes of the Christians 
of the West; the expression of an experience, be it remem- 
bered, which includes the churches of Italy as well as the 
churches of Africa. “Because,” he says, “the manners of 
wicked Christians, very bad as ere now they have been, seem 
to have been free from this particular mischief, of men marry- 
ing other men’s wives, or women other women’s husbands ; 
hence perchance in some churches it has come in of negligence 
unawares that the catechisms taught to the candidates for 
Baptism neither enquire of nor censure these faults. Where- 
upon they have begun even to be justified. Still, as yet they 
occur but rarely in baptized persons, if only we do not by our 
carelessness make them frequent.’ Here we have a con- 
ventional morality among the Christians of the West, which, 
compared with the “ ecclesiastical custom” of the Christians of 
the East, was as light compared with darkness. ‘True, they 
had neither to do with the long-inherited dissoluteness of the 
Eastern cities, nor with the intrigues of the capital; but how- 
ever protected they might be by circumstance, their high 
standard of moral life was at least their own accepted reading 
of the duties of Christian matrimony. The Roman secular 
law left them as free as their brethren of the East to sever the 
legal bond by the process of divorce, and to contract another, 
not less legal, in its place. 

It is accordingly from the fourth century onwards that in 
the matter of the Christian theory of marriage the West, by 
holding firm the tradition of the first three centuries, is found 
out of harmony with the East. While the East diverged in 
the direction of laxity, taking up a position which it has since 
maintained, and of which it is not too much to say that at 
the present day it allows divorce for well-nigh “every cause,” 
the West has, on the whole, consistently disallowed the 
possibility of the severance of the marriage bond for any 
reason short of the death of one of the partners. 

We may notice the Western teachers of this period in the 





1 §. Augustine, De Fide et Operibus, § 35. 


S. Ambrose 


Re- 
marriage 
after di- 
vorce not 
admitted. 


mopvela 
is adultery. 


318 HOLY MATRIMONY 


following order: §S. Ambrose, 8. Chromatius, 8. Jerome, 
S. Augustine, the African Canons, 8. Innocent I, 8. Hilary 
of Poictiers, Ambrosiaster. 

S. Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan at the close of the 
fourth century, in his Commentary on 8. Luke xvi. 18, has 
much to say on the subject of matrimony. His views on the 
remarriage of converts, and on the sacramental character of 
marriage, are referred to in this volume in connection with 
those subjects. On the subject of divorce in the case of 
Christians he recalls our Lord’s teaching that “he that putteth 
away his wife causeth her to commit adultery,” and assigns the 
reason. “ Because,” he says, “it not being lawful for her in her 
husband’s lifetime to contract a new marriage, sinful desire 
may gradually prevail against her.” It was “not lawful” of 
course only by the Christian discipline. By the secular law 
it was lawful enough, and 8. Ambrose accordingly goes on to 
say, “Suppose her to marry. The blame of the constraint she 
lay under is upon thee: and what thou accountest to be 
marriage 15 adultery.” This is a little obscure, and may mean 
that the guilt of adultery attaches to the remarriage of the 
divorced wife, or to the remarriage of the divorcing husband. 
Whichever remarriage is referred to, it is, however, adultery, 
and the seeming of marriage cannot alter its character. “ For 
what matters it whether thou commit that crime with open 
avowal of it, or as one who is an adulterer under the mask of 
a husband? Only that it is more grievous to have contrived a 
law to warrant crime than a secret perpetration of it.” The 
concession of divorce is Jewish, not Christian. “‘ Moses per- 
mitted,’ He saith, ‘not Gop commanded’; but the law of Gop 
was from the beginning.” ἢ 

The passage quoted from the De Abraham lays down that 
“the same chastity is due on the husband’s part as on the 
wife’s,” notwithstanding the laxity of the secular law. Hus- 
bands are to “avoid blending themselves with an adulterous 
body,” and “not to give their wives such cause for separation.” 
Husbands, then, might be put away by wives for such a cause, 
and, a fortiori, wives by their husbands. It will not be for- 


18. Ambrose, Lapositio Evangelica secundum Lucam, lib, viii. § 2, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 319 


sotten that wherever it is allowed that the wife may put 
away a husband for πορνεία, there πορνεία must mean post- 
nuptial sin. To 5. Ambrose therefore πορνεία at least includes 
adultery.? 

S. Chromatius of Aquileia (c. A.D. 350-407), adverting to the 5. 
erave license of remarriage after divorce which the Manichzeans ©™°™4"™"s 
permitted themselves, says, “ Wherefore let those men be well 
aware what a heavy sentence of condemnation they incur a wife may 
in Gop’s sight, who for unbridled lust dismiss their wives ave ? 
without cause of fornication, and then seek to pass to another adultery, 

Ξ . ° 2 : but not 
marriage. They believe that they do so with impunity, otherwise. 
because it seems permitted by the laws of man and of the 
world: not knowing that hereby they aggravate their fault in 
that they prefer human laws to divine, in believing that lawful 
which Gop hath ordained to be unlawful, because it is freely 
allowed by man.” The antagonism of the Roman to the 
Christian law was thus very clear to 8. Chromatius. He has 
no doubt that a wife may be put away for adultery. “But as 
it is impiety to put away a wife who is living in chastity and 
purity, so also it is permitted to put away an adulteress, because 
she hath made herself unfit for the society of a husband, who 
by sinning against her own body hath dared to profane the 
temple of Gop.”? 8. Chromatius says nothing on the subject 
of remarriage. 

In 8. Jerome (A.D. 346-420) we have a teacher whose 
Biblical scholarship was unparalleled in his day, and whose 
criticism of the language of Scripture must always be of very 
high value. It is true that his fiery and undisciplined 
partisanship of everything he took in hand goes far to derogate 
from the trust which would otherwise be given to his more 
solid work, and different views are consequently held with 
respect to the importance to be attached to his various 
expressions of opinion, but, in the present matter it is well 
to remember that, however vigorously expressed, his principles 
are simply those of 8. Ambrose and §. Augustine, as they are 
those of the first three centuries of Christianity. 


S. Jerome. 





1 §. Ambrose, De Abraham, lib. i. § 25. 
2 §. Chromatius, On the Sermon on the Mount. Trac. x, 


Case of 
Fabiola. 


Wife at 
liberty, 
perhaps 
bound, to 
put away 
adulterous 
husband. 


Antag- 
onism of 
Christian 
and secular 
laws. 


Re- 
marriage 
after 
divorce 
disallowed. 


Fabiola’s 
penance. 


320 HOLY MATRIMONY 


It was the case of Fabiola which elicited S. Jerome’s first 
pronouncement on the subject of divorce. This lady had put 
away her husband for vices “said to have been such that 
no harlot, no mean slave, could have endured them.” 5S. 
Jerome is clear that so far she was justified; perhaps she 
was even bound to put her husband away. “ Whatever is 
enjoined on husbands extends also virtually to wives. For 
in nowise can it be a duty to dismiss an adulterous wife, 
but to retain a husband who is an adulterer. ‘If one be joined 
to a harlot it maketh one body,’ therefore also she who 
companies with a fornicator and an impure person is made 
one body with him.” 1 

Like all the other Christian teachers of his age 5. Jerome 
has to emphasize the fact that the law of Christ is in the 
matter of marriage at issue with the law of the Empire. 
“The laws imperial are different from those of Christ; Papinian 
enjoins one thing, our Paul (not your lawyer of that name) 
another thing. With them husbands are unchecked in their 
impurity .... with us what is forbidden to wives is equally 
forbidden to husbands.” ? 

Fabiola, then, had been perfectly justified in putting her 
husband away, notwithstanding the inequality of the Roman 
practice. Fabiola, however, did not stop at putting her 
husband away, but married again. 8. Jerome, who is writing a 
panegyric of the lady after her death, admits that this act 
was without any other real justification than Fabiola’s 
ignorance of the “full force of the gospel.” “Fabiola too, 
having persuaded herself, and thinking that she had lawfully 
put away her husband, and not knowing the full force of 
the Gospel, wherein every plea for wives marrying is cut away 
while their husbands live, in shrinking from the manifold wounds 
of the evil one, received unawares this one blow.” He goes on 
to narrate how Fabiola herself, in her second widowhood, 
coming to understand what she had done more clearly, 
acknowledged the guilt and accepted the penance of adultery. 
“She put on sackcloth that she might publicly confess her 
error, and on Easter Eve in the sight of the whole city of 


1S. Jerome, Hpist. 1xxvii. 2 Ibid. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Ὁ: 


Rome she stood in the ranks of the penitents in the 
Basilica which formerly belonged to Leteranus, who was 
beheaded by the imperial sword. Thus standing, while the 
bishop, the presbyters, and all the people wept in her company, 
she presented dishevelled hair, a wan face, unwashen hands, 
η ἢ 5011 6} anec kt aaa: She grieved in such sort as if she 
had committed adultery, and by much lavishing of remedies 
sought to heal that one wound.”! Fabiola then did penance 
for her second marriage as for adultery, and her penance 
was received and welcomed by the whole Roman Church. At 
the same time the tone of the passage seems to imply that 
while Fabiola was right in her view of the second marriage 
as adulterous, the Church would not have demanded the 
penance of adultery from her unless she had voluntarily 
rendered it. The penitential practice in such cases is evidently 
hardly formed, notwithstanding the canons of Eliberis, and 
there would probably be a strong feeling that however 
immutable the principles involved, yet on a point where 
authority had not been very loudly heard, sin was at least 
less sinful in the insolence of its rebellious character, and 
ought therefore to be more tenderly dealt with. 

The panegyric does not appear to have been written till 399 
A.D.; but the divorce, the remarriage, and the penance of 
Fabiola must all have occurred before 8. Jerome’s last visit to 
Rome, in which he appears to have made Fabiola’s acquaintance. 
This visit occurred in 382 a.p. Keble notices that if the rule 
of penance for adultery was followed which had been laid down 
by the Council of Eliberis in the beginning of the century, the 
penance itself would last five years. It may, however, be fairly 
doubted whether Fabiola would feel bound to remain among 
the penitents for the whole of this term; and, as we have 
noticed, it does not appear probable that the Roman Church 
would have required it. The account quoted above seems rather 
to imply the performance once for all of one great striking act 
of public penance. 

It was in 384, some few years therefore after Fabiola’s 7, 
experience, that 3. Jerome addressed a letter to Amandus, a Amandus. 





1S. Jerome, Hpist. xxvii. 
δέ 


A woman 
remarried 
is to 

separate. 


A woman 
after re- 
marriage 
may not 
return to 
her first 
husband. 


Sue HOLY MATRIMONY 


priest of Bordeaux, in reply to certain questions. Amandus 


_ had asked the question “whether a wife who has left her husband 


for adultery and unnatural crime, and has had another forcibly 
imposed upon her, may without penance communicate with the 
Church during the lifetime of him whom she had before left.” 
The case was not a mere suppositious case of conscience, but 
one which had actually occurred, and the question had been 
suggested by the lady herself. 5. Jerome’s answer is not 
wanting in clearness. “Reply accordingly to the sister who 
enquires of me concerning her status with the decision which 
is not mine but the apostle’s: ‘Know ye not brethren... . 
and in another place, ‘The wife is bound by the law so long as 
her husband liveth. But if her husband is dead, she is freed: 
let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord.” The apostle, 
you see, cutting away all excuses, has most plainly decided that 
in the hfetime of the husband the wife is an adulteress, if she 
have married another. I am indifferent, though you bring 
forward to me the ravisher’s violence, the mother’s persuasion, 
the father’s authority, the throng of kinsfolk, the tricks and 
the insolence of the slaves, or the losses of the family estate. 
As long as the husband lives, though he be an adulterer, or 
stained with unnatural sin, or overwhelmed with all vices, and 
have been deserted by his wife by reason of these iniquities, he 
is still accounted her husband, nor may she take another 
husband.”* ; | 

The practical conclusion §. Jerome comes to is as follows: 
“Therefore in the case of this sister also, who, as she Says, 
suffered violence in being united to another, if she wish to 
recelve the Body of Christ, and not to be accounted an 
adulteress, let her do penance; with this understanding, 
however, that she do not cohabit with the second husband, 
whose title is not husband but adulterer, from the time of her 
penance.” 

In connexion with this case it is worth while to notice that 
S. Jerome does not consider it open to’a woman who has thus 
been remarried after divorce to return to her first and true 
husband. He bases this opinion on Deuteronomy xxiv., and 


1S. Jerome, Epist, lv. ο. 3. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 323 


in accepting it seems, like 8. Chrysostom, somewhat to forsake 
the mercy of the earliest Christian ages. 

In 393 8. Jerome wrote his books in controversy with To 
Jovinian. Commenting on 8. Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians J!" 
vil. 10 he writes: “ For he teaches that the wife, in accordance 
with the decision of the Lord, is not to be put away except for 
the cause of fornication; and that she who is put away ought 
either to abstain from marrying another during the lifetime of Re- 
her husband, or indeed be reconciled to her husband.” S. Jerome m™ 8° 


in all cases 
thus, like 8. Augustine afterwards, pieces together the teaching i@4- 


of our Lord, and that of 5S. Paul, with the result that the a ain 
remarriage of a divorced wife is in all cases inadmissible so 
long as the partner lives.* 

The Commentaries on the Minor Prophets were produced at 
intervals from 391 A.D. to 406 A.D. In the Commentary on Commen- 
Malachi he adduces our Lord’s teaching, that it is unlawful to een 
put away a wife except for the cause of fornication.’ 

The commentary on 8. Matthew was partly written in 397 ee 
A.D., and was finished in great haste on S. Jerome’s recovery Matthew. 
from an illness in the Lent of 398 A.D. Commenting on the 
Sermon on the Mount he says that “ Moses enjoined the bill of 
divorce to be given because of the hardness of the husbands’ 
hearts, not granting divorce, but doing away with homicide.” 
Farther on, in the notes on 8. Matthew xix., he says that our 
Lord in disallowing the Mosaic leense “had not promulgated 
any sentence of his own, but had only called to mind an ancient 
history and certain commands of Gop.” 

The disputed verse, S. Matt. xix. 9,is given in the printed 5. matt. 
editions of S. Jerome in the ordinary reading of the Vulgate: ** * 
“Dico autem vobis, quia quicunque dimiserit uxorem suam, nist 
ob fornicationem, et alam duxerit, moechatur. Ht qui dimissam 
duxerut, mocchatur.” This may have been the reading used by 
S. Jerome, but if so it is certainly remarkable that, unlike S. 
Augustine, he has not a word of explanation to offer on the 
apparent permission of remarriage in the case of divorce for 
fornication. The possibilty of such remarriage being permitted 
never even occurs to him. In fact he reads the text quite the 





15. Jerome, Ad Jovinianwm, lib. i. ὁ. 10. " Lid. In Malachiam, ii, 14. 
Vez 


A mah is 
bound to 
put away 
his wife for 
adultery, 


as also 
‘suspicion 
of forni- 
cation.” 


Summary 
of 

S. Jerome’s 
views. 


324 HOLY MATRIMONY 


other way. “And because it might happen that one brought a 
false charge against the innocent, and with a view to a second 
matrimonial connection might inflict a reproach on the former 
one, he is directed so to dismiss his wife, as not to have another 
while his first is alive” Similarly of the woman, “ because it 
might happen that the wife for her part should by the same 
law give a bill of divorcee to her husband, the same cautionary 
precept is given that she may not take another man.”? Re- 
marriage then, during the lifetime of the partner, is absolutely 
and in all cases forbidden. 

While, however, there may be no remarriage, a man may put 
away his wife for fornication, and indeed is bound to do so, 
“lest she bring the man also under a curse, since the Scripture 
saith, ‘He who retaineth an adulteress is foolish and impious.’ ” 
By fornication he understands post-nuptial adultery ; it occurs 
“when she hath distributed of that one flesh to another, and 
hath separated herself from her husband by fornication” (ewm 
illa unam carnem in aliam diiserit, et se fornicatione separavertt 
a marito).2 In saying that a man is free to put away his wife 
not only when there is fornication, but when there is “suspicion 
of fornication,” 8S. Jerome seems to give to our Lord’s words a 
dangerous extension. There are, however, no other admissible 
erounds of putting away except fornication, or the suspicion 
of it. “What if she be a drunkard, passionate, profligate, 
luxurious, greedy, a gadder about, quarrelsome, evil-tongued ; 
must such an one be retained? Whether we will or no, she 
must be borne.” ὃ 

S. Jerome then holds that a man may, and indeed ought 
to, put away his wife for fornication, understanding by forni- 
cation adultery after marriage. A wife is equally justified in 
putting away an adulterous husband, and perhaps ought to put 
him away. In all cases remarriage during the lifetime of the 
partner is inadmissible. Yet a wife once put away ought not 
to be restored. The verse (S. Matt. xix. 9), whatever the reading 
before 5. Jerome may have been, conveyed to him no sanction 
of remarriage. 

S. Hilary of Poictiers (died 368 A.D.), commenting on the 


1 §. Jerome, Commentary on S. Matt. xix. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE S20 


fifth chapter of 8. Matthew, says that our Lord added many S. Hilary 
points to the law, but took nothing from it. “For whereas Στ Ὁ 
the law had conceded the liberty of effecting divorce by the 
authority of instruments, now the Evangelical Faith hath not 

only enjoined upon the husband the desire for concord, but has 

judged him guilty of compelling his wife to adultery, if she is Adultery 
married anew to another through the stress of his desertion ; on, 
prescribing no other ground for ceasing from wedded life oe ae 
(desinendt a conjugio) than the defilement of a husband by the away. 
society of a prostituted wife.” 

There is no reason to suppose that 8. Hilary would have 
admitted remarriage, any more than the other great doctors of 
the West. 

We come now to the greatest doctor of the West, to ὃ. 5. 
Augustine. The views of this great theologian on the subject ere 
of marriage are to be found scattered over many treatises, and 
the numerous extracts which are given above will leave no 
doubt as to what his views were, or as to the degree of pre- 
cision with which he held them. It is perhaps desirable to 
read them all through with some rapidity, and so to obtain the 
general standpoint, before pausing to consider them in detail. 

Much has been made in this controversy of a single passage 

in the tract De Fide et Operibus? in which 8. Augustine SR he 
“Whosoever hath put away a wife taken in adultery, and inthe “De 
married another, does not seem as if he ought to be on the ΟΣ 
same footing with those who divorce and remarry for some 

other cause than adultery. And in the dictates of Gop 
Himself it is so obscure whether he who unquestionably may 
dismiss an adulteress is yet to be judged an adulterer if he 

marry another that, as far as I can judge, one may pardonably 

err on that point.” Will it be credited that this well-worn 
quotation has no reference to Christian matrimony at all] ? hasno 
The whole passage refers to Catechumens, who are candidates a 
for Baptism, and who are not yet members of the Body of ™ftisge 
Christ. The subject of the remarriage of converts, and of baptized. 


1S. Hilary, Commentary on δ. Matthew, c. iv. § 22. 
* §. Augustine, De Fide et Operibus, ὁ. 19 (Migne’s Ed, tom. vi. p, 221). 
See post, : 


326 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the relations of Christian marriage to non-Christian marriage, 
will be treated at length elsewhere; and it is sufficient here to 
notice that what is remarkable about S. Augustine’s attitude 
in the passage now under notice is not that he admits to 
Baptism those who, prior to Baptism, have put away their 
wives on the ground of adultery, and married again, but that 
he should consider that their case has in it any great element 
of difficulty. The overwhelming consensus of the Church, as 
we shall see elsewhere, has gone to recognize in the non- 
Christian world the same liberty as.to divorce and to polygamy 
which the Mosaic code permitted to the Israelites, and not to 
recognize outside Christianity the existence of the sacramental 
bond which in members of the Body of Christ makes the 
marriage indissoluble. The difficulty which 5. Augustine ex- 
perienced in accepting this view springs doubtless from a cause 
not difficult to assign. The candidates for Baptism in 58. 
Augustine’s day had probably in a majority of instances been 
born either of Christian parents or, ike 5. Augustine himself, 
of parentage partly Christian, and had been more or less 
brought up as Christians so far as concerned the teaching of 
Christian theological tenets and Christian moral precepts. 
They were in fact Christians by profession. But by a baneful 
abuse of that day the very loftiness of the estimate in which 
Baptism was held as the laver of regeneration led men and 
women, but especially men, to defer their Baptism till the 
maturity of life, so ‘that the waywardness of youth, and the 
impulses of early passion, might be covered and left behind in 
the one Baptism for the remission of sins. Consequently in 
the cases of the Catechumens with whom 8. Augustine had to 
deal, the lives which they had led before Baptism presented 
a twofold aspect. On the one hand they had been the lives 
of professing Christians, on the other they had been the lives 
of those who were not Christians in fact. On the one hand it 
might seem intolerable that those who professed the Christian 
name should be permitted with impunity to claim the full 
license of heathen indulgence; on the other it would certainly 
be hard that those who had never yet been members of Christ, 
and whose bodies were not temples of the Holy Ghost, should 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 327 


be held bound by that sacramental bond of Holy Matrimony 
which was, in 8. Augustine’s view, in all cases indissoluble. 
And so there is a certain hesitancy as to allowing or forbidding 
Catechumens to retain in Christian wedlock the wives whom 
outside Baptism they had married under the secular laws, after 
divorcing their first wives on the ground of adultery. 

For the purpose of the present chapter, which is concerned 
with the question whether divorce and remarriage are open to 
the baptized, it is clear that the views of S. Augustine with 
regard to Catechumens have no place in the enquiry. Having 
thus cleared the ground we may now refer to the other teaching 
of S. Augustine. 

Commenting on the Sermon on the Mount he understands Sete 
that “it is possible for” the husband “to put away his wife on the 
for the cause of fornication, which the Lord willed to be an Mount” 
exception.” “He does not make it compulsory to dismiss if heen 
there be such cause; He only permits.”? Again, “there would "¢e¢ ποῦ, 


be no harm in the husband’s being reconciled to that woman yore 
unto whom the Lord said... Go, and see that thow sin no ae 
more.’ > Similarly the wife may put away for fornication ; “ 1 penitent 
then the rule is alike, we must understand that the wife may ἘΣΘ 
not put away except for fornication; as neither may the Wife may 
husband.” But neither the husband nor the wife who has for fori. 
thus put away a partner is at liberty to remarry; “neither the ον 
wife may marry in the lifetime of the husband from whom she marriage 
has withdrawn herself, nor the husband take another wife in “™°"** 
the lifetime of her whom he hath put away.”® 5. Augustine’s 
repeated statement of his view that the wife may put away 

for fornication as well as the husband proves clearly that he πορνεία 
regarded πορνεία as at least inclusive of post-nuptial sin. at ieast 
S. Augustine arrives at his decision against remarriage by adultery. 
connecting 8. Paul’s teaching with our Lord’s. Ὁ. Paul ordains 

“that the wife depart not from the husband, but an if she depart 

that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.” 

S. Augustine presumes that if she depart it will be for the 


cause of fornication held sufficient by our Lord.® 


1 §. Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. 1. ὃ 39. 
2 lbid lib. i, § 48. 9. Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 bid, 6 Tbid. lib. i. § 39, 


Spiritual 
fornication 


328 HOLY MATRIMONY 


To the term “fornication” S. Augustine, however, proceeds 


a ground of to assign a latitude of signification which he afterwards with- 


separation. 


Divorced 
wife must 
remain 
unmarried 
or be 
reconciled. 


The 
‘“‘ Retracta- 
tions.” 


drew. Arguing that unbelief is fornication, that idolatry 15 
unbelief, and that covetousness is idolatry, he concludes that 
covetousness 1s fornication ; and so generally he remarks, “From 
this it is apparent that a man may without fault dismiss his 
wife, and a wife her husband, on the ground of unlawful desires, 
not only those which are committed in lustful intercourse with 
the husbands and wives of others, but any soever which make 
a soul in abusing the body to err from the law of Gop, and to 
be perniciously and shamefully corrupted. For the Lord excepts 
the case of fornication, and this fornication, as was considered 
above, we are bound to understand in a general and universal 
Sense.” 1 

He experiences a difficulty as to the case of the woman who 
is put away, because our Lord, while characterising her second 
partner as guilty of adultery, does not emphatically include the 
woman herself in the same condemnation. “On the other 
hand, it is much harder to make out, when a man and a woman 
are connected with mutual consent, one of them should be in 
adultery and not the other. Besides, if the man be in adultery 
by marrying one put away from her husband, though she did 
not dismiss him, but was dismissed, she for her part causeth 
him to commit adultery, which is equally forbidden by our 
Lord.” He therefore sees his way to a definite conclusion— 
“The inference from all this is, that, whether dismissed or 
dismissing, she ought to remain unmarried, or be reconciled to 
her husband.” ? 

The Lxposition of the Sermon on the Mount, from which these 
passages are taken, was written by 8. Augustine when as yet 
but a priest at Hippo, somewhere about 394 a.p. It might be 
suspected therefore that the work would shew something of 
youthful certainty, which age, experience, and the responsibility 
of the episcopate would tend to modify in after years. It is 
very satisfactory to be able to bring 8. Augustine’s views to the 
test of this maturer experience by means of the Retractations, 
a treatise in which he re-treated all the previous labours of his 


1 §, Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib, i. ὁ 46. 2. Ibid, lib. i. § 48. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 329 


life, confirming generally, but occasionally. correcting. The 
date of this work must probably be placed some thirty years 
after the date of the Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. 
Reviewing this Exposition he expresses his sense of the great 
difficulty of the subject, and his preference that his readers 
should not regard his views as final, but rather compare them 
with those of others. “Nor do I wish that, in a matter so 
great and so hard to determine, the reader should imagine that 
he ought to content himself with that discourse of mine; but 
let him read other sayings also, whether of mine subsequently 
written, or of others better considered and discussed; or, if he 
can, let him for himself, with a more alert and searching spirit, 
examine the points which may well affect a man’s judgment 
thereon.”+ But, while thus disclaiming any desire to dogmatise 
unduly, he holds by all his former views with two exceptions Doubt 
only. The first of these is as to the meaning of that fornication eaten 
for which a husband or a wife might put away. Did it, or did it paras 
not, include spiritual fornication (as idolatry), as well as the for- fornication 
nication of “unlawful embraces”? It is clear, on the one hand, Pedi 
that all sin is not fornication in the sense which would justify #74 
putting away; it is clear, on the other, that unlawful embraces 
do justify putting away. Whether between these points there 
is a spiritual fornication which justifies putting away seeins to 
Ὁ. Augustine in his maturer years a question which is at least 
arouable—* But how far this fornication is understood to reach, 
and where its limit is to be drawn, is a most intricate enquiry.” 

There was a second point on which he corrected his earlier Husband 


: μ bound to 
teaching. He had said of the putting away of an adulterous put away 
A ie: . : if 
wife, “This is permitted, not commanded.” Recollecting the arte 
passage, “He who retaineth an adulteress is foolish and adultery 
continues. 


impious,”® he revokes this teaching, and now teaches that a 
man is bound to put away an adulteress so long as she 
continues to be an adulteress. But he is positive that the door 
of return must be left open to the penitent: ‘By no means, 
however, could I allow that the woman (in the Gospel) was 


1 §. Augustine, Retractationes, lib. i. c. 19, ὁ 6. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 1. 
Ῥ 616.) 2 [bid. 
3 Proverbs xviii. 22, in the Vulgate : Quz tenet adulteram stultus et impius est, 


Reply to 
Faustus. 


A para- 
phrase. 


Comments 


on S. Matt. 


xix 9. 


330 HOLY MATRIMONY 


to be accounted an adulteress even after our Lord had said unto 
her, ‘ Neither will I condemn thee: go, and sin no more, if she 
heard His saying obediently.” 1 

This door of forgiveness, open to the penitent, is fully con- 
sistent with the views formerly expressed on the subject of 
remarriage, which he sees no occasion to modify. The Le- 
tractations leave ὃ. Augustine on this subject where he was 
thirty years before. In no case may either husband or wife 
marry again during the lifetime of the other. 

In 8. racine s Reply to Faustus, the Manicheean, he quotes 
our Lord’s teaching on this subject in the form of a paraphrase, 
which is of interest as illustrating the question of the true 
reading of 8S. Matthew xix. 9. “It hath been said, Whosoever 
will put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce; but I 
say, Whosoever shall put away his wife (excepting the cause of 
fornication) will both cause her to commit adultery, and will be 
himself an adulterer, should he afterwards marry another.”? 
The first part of this somewhat free quotation appears to be 
from 8. Matthew v. 32, while the second part is from 8. Mark x. 
11, or from 8. Luke xvi. 18. The text of 5. Matthew xix. 9,as 
we have it in the Zextus Receptus, may well have been con- 
structed in exactly the same way, but by a scribe who, in 
declining to paraphrase the words of the passages of Holy 
Scripture which he united, has introduced a fatal confusion 
of meaning which 8. Augustine is here most careful to avoid. 

While on this subject, it may be as well to refer to S. 
Augustine’s comments on 8. Matthew xix. 9 in his treatise 
De Conjugus Adulterinis. It is apparent from those comments 
that the version of 5. Matthew which was before 8. Augustine 
represented the present received text, containing the phrase and 
shall marry another. Ὁ. Augustine thus expresses the difficulty 
of this reading: “If it be understood in the sense that ‘he 
who putteth away for fornication, and then marrieth, doth not 
commit adultery, it (our Lord’s statement) apparently makes a 
difference in this case between the rule for the husband and 
that for the wife, seeing that the wife departing from the 


3 §. Augustine, Retractationes, lib. i. c. 19, 6. 
4 ὃ. Augustine, Contra Faustwm, lib. xix. ¢. 3. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Bow 


husband, though it be for fornication, and marrying another, 
commits adultery, while the husband, if for the same cause 
he dismiss the wife, and remarry, doth not so. But if the 
rule is the same for both, in both it is adultery to unite one’s 
self to another, even when the separation was for uncleanness.”! 
He then proceeds to quote 8. Paul to prove that the rule for 
the husband is the same as that for the wife. 

In the treatise De Bono Conjugali, published about 401 A.D. nates 
—the fifth or sixth year of S. Augustine’s episcopate—he Conjugali.” 
reiterates his views on remarriage after divorce with entire No re- 
definiteness. “The mutual consent (confoederationem) made in pp. 
marriage Gop’s Scripture doth so commend as that neither one “vee: 
dismissed by her husband may marry another so long as her 
husband liveth; nor may he that is dismissed by his wife 
marry another until she be dead who departed from him.”? In 
another place in the same treatise he makes the same statement 
while referring the indissolubility to the sacramental character 
of the Christian marriage bond. “To such a degree does that 
marriage covenant once contracted become, as it were, a sacra- 
mental thing, that even by separation it is not voided; since 
as long as the husband liveth, although the wife be forsaken 
by him, she is an adulteress if she marry another man, and he 
who left her is the cause of this evil.’* He here confesses 
a “difficult compheation” (dtficilem nodum) on the subject of 
the remarriage of the innocent husband, but again sums up 
against it on the ground of the equality of husband and wife 
in their mutual relations. “ But on what principle the husband 
should have license to marry another upon leaving the un- 
faithful wife, while the wife has not license to be married 
to another upon leaving an adulterous husband, I see ποῦ. Ὁ 
This “exceeding tenacity of the marriage bond” was, however, 
far from being accepted by 5. Augustine without notice because 
it was part of the Christian tradition: “Who would not be set 
on musing” by it? “I by no means think that it could have 
had so much force except from its being applied as a sort of 
sacrament of some greater thing.” Outside Christianity there 





1S. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adullterinis, lib. 1. c. 8, 
2 Ibid. De Bono Conjugali, ο. 3. BOTDIG Ος ἡ: 4 Ibid, 


but this 
strictness 
is peculiar 
to 
Christians. 


The 
penitent 
adulteress 
may 
return. 


Sermon 302. 


Marriage 
indissoluble 


Inequality 
of husband 
and wife 
rejected. 


anyate HOLY MATRIMONY 


was no such strict obligation: “The case is not so with a wife 
except in the city of our Gop, in His holy mountain.”! Other 
passages in the same treatise affirm no less definitely that all 
remarriage of divorced persons is unlawful during the lifetime 
of the partner. It is equally clear that this law apples only to 
Christians, and that, speaking generally, non-Christian marriage 
has no pretensions to the indissoluble character. In this aspect 
the statements will be examined in another chapter. 

Ὁ. Augustine in this treatise, as elsewhere, keeps open the 
door of return to the penitent adulteress. “But if she repent 
her of her wickedness, and, returning to the chastity of wedlock, 
she rescind her adulterous agreements and purposes, I shall 
be astonished if even the adulterer himself hold her to be a 
breaker of her faith.”? 

Passing on to the Sermon numbered 392 in the collection 
of 8. Augustine’s works, a Sermon preached to the people of 
Hippo after he had been bishop for several years, ὃ. Augustine 
repeats his views as to the indissolubility of the marriage bond 
in the case of Christians, with no less definiteness than before. 
“You must not have wives whose former husbands are living, 
nor may you, women, have husbands whose former wives are 
living. Such marriages are adulterous, not by the law of the 
courts, but by the law of Heaven. Nor may a woman who by 
divorce has withdrawn from her husband become your wife 
while her husband lives. Only because of fornication may one 
dismiss an adulterous wife; but in her lifetime you may not 
marry another. Neither to you, O women, is it granted to find 
husbands in those men whose wives have quitted them by 
divorce: such are adulteries, not marriages.” 

In common with other Christian doctors, S. Augustine finds 
nothing to commend in the tendency of certain Christians to 
accept the current Roman views as to the inequality of husband 
and wife. “ Who would endure an adulterous wife? Yet the 
woman is bidden to endure an adulterous husband. What 
justice! Why, I ask thee?” 

In the Epistle on the Blessing of Tena written perhaps 


1 §. Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, c. 7. a ὦ δι 
3 Ibid. Sermon 892, c. 2 [Migne’s Ed. tom. v. p. 1710]. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE ΕἸ) ἢ 


in 414 a.p., 5. Augustine speaks of the “Sacrament of Marriage The “De 
ἢ Ε wre é Bono 
indissoluble as long as both are living,’! connecting the vViauitatis.” 


indissolubility with the sacramental character of Christian Seo 
menta 


marriage. indissolu- 
In 419 a.p. the great doctor wrote the treatise De Nuptiis et δ δ. 
The “De 


Concupiscentia. In this, speaking of “a certain Sacrament of Nuptiis et 
Marriage,” he says that “the inward part of this sacrament Concupis 
doubtless is, that male and female once joined in marriage j,a:ccoiu- 
should persevere inseparably as long as they live, and that ἜΘΕΟΝ 
it should not be lawful, except on account of fornication, for marriage. 
the one to be severed from the other.”? And speaking of those 
who remarry after divorce, he says, “ By the law of the Gospel 
such an one is guilty of adultery; as is the woman too if she 
be married to another. So absolutely do the mutual rights of 
wedlock once acquired continue during the parties’ lifetime, 
that even the separated (on whichever side the separation take 
place) are more truly man and wife together than they are with 
those others to whom they have joined themselves. For they 
would not be in adultery with others, unless they continued 
husbands and wives (as the case might be) to one another.’ 

The force of this argument is in nowise diminished since 
S. Augustine’s time, and it may fairly be believed that the firm argument 
attitude of the logical West is in no slight measure due to it. fF com 


tinuance 


There may be difficulty in the passage S. Matthew xix. 9. of bond 
There is, unhappily, no doubt about the diversity of practice arte: 
between East and West from the fourth century onwards; but aeultery 
when all is said, the human mind cannot admit contradictories partner. 
in the same finite subject-matter. If one of the partners ina 
second marriage is by that partnership guilty of adultery, then 
the former bond of marriage must still exist; and if the bond 
of that marriage still exist, then it is adultery if the other 
partner to it remarry. One cannot be free and the other 
bound. 

In the same year, 419 AD. 8. Augustine wrote the two 


books De Conjugus Adulterims, addressed to Pollentius, who, 


18. Augustine, De Bono Vidustatis, c. 4 [Migne’s Ed. tom, vi, p. 433]. 
2 Ibid. De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, lib. i. c. 11 [Migne’s Ed, tom. x. 
p. 420]. Sel bid. 


The “De 
Conjugiis 
Adulte- 
rinis.” 

An 
adulteress 
may not 
remarry. 


334 HOLY MATRIMONY 


notwithstanding the decision of the Council of Carthage in 
407 A.D., saw fit to re-open the subject of remarriage after 
divorce. Pollentius asked whether 8. Paul’s instruction in 
1 Cor. vii. 10, that a woman who departed from her husband 
was to remain unmarried, could be held to include the case 
of the woman who had put away her husband for adultery. 


' §. Augustine argues in reply, that inasmuch as the woman 


The 
argument 
of 
Pollentius 
that 
adultery 
dissolves 
marriage 
ipso facto. 


Penitent 
to be 
restored. 


Arguments 


of 
Pollentius 


from incon- 


venience. 


might only depart at all in the case of adultery, it must be 
in this case that she was, though separated, to remain un- 
married. It will be remembered that this is the old argument 
of the Lxposition of the Sermon on the Mount, written a quarter 
of a century before. S. Augustine clearly stood exactly where 
he had always stood in the matter. Remarriage after divorce 
is entirely forbidden to Christians, till the death of one or the 
other sets the remaining partner free. 

Pollentius used the argument which has been so widely used 
by some of late years that adultery was equivalent to death, 
dissolving a marriage wpso facto; the argument to which, in 
truth, the defenders of remarriage after divorce are logically 
driven. 8S. Augustine’s reply is noteworthy: “See how absurd 
this is, that he is not an adulterer, because he has married an 
adulteress. Nay, what is more monstrous still, neither will the 
woman herself be an adulteress; since to the second husband 
she will not be the wife of another, but his own. For the 
marriage bond having been dissolved by the former adultery, 
whomsoever she shall now have married, he too having no wife, 
she will not be an adulteress with an adulterer, but rather a 
wife with a husband.” 

S. Augustine repeats his opinion that the penitent sinner 
ought to be received again; the husband “has no right now to 
call her an adulteress, whose crime, she being penitent, he 
believes to be blotted out by Gop’s mercy.” 

He deals with various objections from inconvenience brought 
forward by Pollentius against the indissolubility of marriage ; 
that a husband unable to marry again would be led to seek the 
death of the adulterous wife; that a husband entering upon a 
second marriage after divorcing his wife for adultery would not 
be admitted to penance while the adulterous wife lived, whereas 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 335 


if he procured his wife’s death, penance would be open to him. 
S. Augustine replies that the adulteress after all is only one 
case of difficulty. There are difficulties no less real in the cases 
of the physically incapable, the dowerless, the barren, the 
deformed. Is the husband in these cases to be allowed to 
marry again, because he is not without inducement to seek the 
death of his wife ? 

Nor, argues S$. Augustine, would the permission to remarry Possibility 
be without grave inconveniences. He foresees that hateful eo" 
possibility of the connivance of the husband with which the oa eae 
experience of the last thirty-five years has made Englishmen the wife’s 
so terribly familiar. “Thinkest thou not that there is need of 4% 
caution lest certain husbands, for one cause or another not able 
to endure their wives, should learn ways of making them 
commit adultery, that the bond of marriage between them being 
dissolved, as thou thinkest, by fornication, they may be free to 
marry others ?” 

If we now sum up the opinions of S. Augustine, they are Summary 
these. Both the husband and the wife may put away for ee 
fornication, which is therefore inclusive, at any rate, of post- teaching: 
nuptial sin. In his later years he held that the husband not 
only might, but was bound to, put away the wife for adultery, 
so long as she remained an adulteress. He was throughout of 
opinion that the sinning partner should be received by the 
other upon repentance. He inclined in his earlier years, but 
less certainly in after life, to think that the fornication which 
justified putting away should be held to include modes of 
spiritual fornication, as idolatry. Whatsoever the ground of 
severance, he is uniformly of opinion that Christian marriage 
is indissoluble by reason of its sacramental character. There 
can be no remarriage of a separated partner during the lifetime 
of the other. He is not blind to difficulties of interpretation ; 
but the conclusion is invariably the same. He knows the 
passage 8. Matthew xix. 9 in the difficult form in which we 
have it in the received text. He rejects the marriage of the 
innocent husband, which some deduce from the text, on the 
eround of its logical incompatibility with the rest of the 
teaching. 


The 
African 
Code. 


Re- 
marriage 
after 
divorce dis- 
allowed. 


An 
imperial 
law desi- 
derated. 


336 HOLY MATRIMONY 


S. Augustine’s teaching on the subject of marriage outside 
Christianity will be treated in the chapter on the remarriage 
of converts. As regards the remarriage after divorce of 
baptized Christians, with which alone this chapter is concerned, 
S. Augustine has throughout the long years of his teaching no 
contrariant conclusion. There can be no such remarriage. 

An important canon of the African Church of this period 
is that numbered 102 in the African Code. It is wrongly 
included by the Pseudo-Isidore among the canons of Milevis, 
and appears to be really the 8th canon of the 11th Synod of 
Carthage held in 407 A.p. It is doubtless in accord with the 
general feeling of the African churches. “It was resolved 
that according to the evangelical and apostolical discipline 
neither a man put away by his wife, nor a woman put away by 
her husband, be united to any other, but that they so abide or 
be reconciled to one another. If, however, they contemptu- 
ously disregard this, they are to be brought to penance.” The 
canon closes with this most significant addition: “in which 
matter application must be made for the promulgation of an 
imperial law.” 

Nothing could shew more markedly the extraordinary dif- 
ference of sentiment in this matter between the churches of 
the East and the churches of Africa. In the East the great 
doctors felt themselves overborne, and were surrendering. In 
Africa the Church was not only of one mind as to the in- 
dissolubility of Christian marriage, but was strong enough to 
feel impatience that the secular legislation did not support the 
Christian view, and to make representations that an imperial 
law based upon that view was urgently called for. It need 
hardly be said that neither then nor at any later period did 
the secular code of the Empire abolish the right of remarriage 
after divorce. But that the African churches should ask for 
such legislation tells its own tale of their unanimity and 
definiteness in the matter. 

5. Innocent I. occupied the Roman See from 402 A.D. to 


S. Innocent 417 A.D. Extracts from three of his letters are given above. 


The first of these is a letter addressed to S. Victricius, 
Bishop of Rouen in the year 404 a.p. In reply to a request 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 99. 


for information as to the practice and discipline of the Roman Letter to 

Church, 8. Innocent in this letter supplies fourteen rules, of Mesetr 

which he says that they are not new, but derived by tradition 

from the apostles and fathers. The thirteenth of these rules 

lays down that consecrated virgins, if they marry, are not to 

be admitted even to penance before the death of the husband, 

and use is made of the following argument: “For if this rule 

is universally observed, that whosoever during the lifetime 

of her husband shall have married another is accounted an 

adulteress, and permission to do penance is not accorded to 

her, unless one or other of them (the husbands) be dead: how Re-_ 

much more ought it to be observed of her, who had in former τους 

time united herself to an Immortal Spouse, and has since print Ἢ 

passed over to human nuptials.” The rule referred to, then, universally 
° : -, accounted 

was universally observed at Rome in 404 A.D., nor does it aduttery. 

appear that any exception was admitted in cases of divorce on 

the ground of adultery. It is interesting to recall that the 

case of Fabiola, only some twenty years before, shews that it 

was then possible for a Christian lady at Rome to enter into a 

second marriage after divorcing her husband, in ignorance that 

“the full force of the Gospel” would not permit such a 

marriage; and that she does not seem to have been called to 

account for it by any external authority. Her edifying pen- 

ance had probably no slight influence in bringing about that 

universal observance of the Roman Church which 8. Innocent 

alludes to as established in 404 A.D. Fabiola’s penance had 

taken place after the death of the second husband; and per- 

haps the most curious feature of the rule “universally observed” 

. In 404 A.D., is that no similar offender was to be admitted even 

to penance till after the death of the second husband. Why 

separation of life should not have been regarded as at least 

as good evidence of penitence does not appear. Possibly the 

rule had rather regard to the practical difficulties arising from 

a second repudiation. 

The next two extracts are taken from a letter addressed to s. 
Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, in reply to certain questions peach 
which had been referred by him to 8. Innocent. The fourth ere 
section deals with the question, “ Why men who are communi- 

Ζ 


The 
treatment 
of the 
adulterous 
husband. 


Re- 
marriage 
“on both 
sides” is 
adultery 


Ss 
Innocent 
to Probus. 


338 HOLY MATRIMONY 


cants do not consort with wives guilty of adultery, while, on 
the other hand, wives are seen to remain in the fellowship of 
adulterous husbands?” The difficulty which seems to have 
troubled Exsuperius is that in the practice of the Christians of 
Gaul a husband was held bound to put away an adulterous 
wife, while a wife was not held bound to put away an adul- 
terous husband. This distinction was in fact, as has been seen, 
very generally observed throughout the Christian Church. 
Probably Exsuperius was not altogether satisfied that a wite 
who retained an adulterous husband was not guilty of con- 
nivance of adultery. ὃ. Leo, however, understood the question 
in a different sense. He thought it had to do with the unequal 
treatment of the guilty parties by the Church, as adulteresses 
were more frequently the objects of Church penalties than 
adulterers. He replies that “the Christian religion condemns 
adultery equally in either sex,” but that the sin of a man was 
less generally matter of notoriety, and that it was not prac- 
ticable to excommunicate people on suspicion. 

Exsuperius had also enquired “touching those, who, divorce 
intervening, have connected themselves with another in mar- 
riage.” δ. Innocent rephes, “That these on both sides are 
adulterers, is evident.” “All such are to be severed from the 
communion of the faithful.” The custom “universally ob- 
served ” in 404 A.D. is thus in 405 A.D. authoritatively affirmed 
by the Roman pontiff, so far as concerns the exclusion of the 
offender from the communion of the Church. 58. Innocent’s 
letter to Exsuperius was written only two years before the 
Synod of Carthage (407 A.D.), whose canon in the same sense 
has already been noticed. Thus at the beginning of the fifth . 
century the Roman and African churches were alike unhesi- 
tating in their assertion of the indissolubility of Christian 
marriage. 

The Epistle of 8. Innocent to Probus is of singular interest, 
as giving the record of what appears to have been one of the 
earliest cases, if not the very earliest case, of the exercise of a 
jurisdiction accorded to bishops by the secular law. A con- 
stitution of Arcadius and Honorius in A.D. 399 had allowed the 
parties in civil suits to go before the bishop as arbitrator. The 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 339 


letter to Probus was written some time after the barbarian 
invasion under Alaric (410 A.D.). In the course of that in- 

vasion a certain Ursa, the wife of one Fortunius, had been 

taken captive by the barbarians. Fortunius in her absence Parga π 
married another wife, named Restituta. Ursa returning from diction. 
captivity, appealed to S. Innocent (nos adut), who took the case 

in hand as one submitted to his “legal competence” ( facultate 

legum intulrt casum). In other words, it was a case for his juris- 

diction under the recent constitution of Arcadius and Honorius. 

The terms of 8. Innocent’s judgment are worthy of notice, 

not only for their substance, but also as indicating the prin- 
ciples which 8. Innocent allowed to guide him in the exercise 
of his new jurisdiction. “We determine, (1) with the warrant 
of the Catholic Faith, that that is the marriage, which by 
God’s grace was established in the first instance; and (2) that 
cohabitation with the second woman can in no wise be legal, so 
long as the first survives and is not cast out by any divorce.” 
S. Innocent thus held that he had to refer (1) to the Catholic 
Faith, and (2) to the secular law. Happily in this case he 
found them agreed. The Catholic Faith maintained the first 
marriage, and, as has been seen, would by the custom “uni- 
versally observed” have done so no less if a divorce had been 
duly effected. No divorce, however, had been effected, and 
accordingly the secular law saw in the union of Fortunius with 
Restituta simply a case of bigamy. Restituta never had been 
the wife of Fortunius before the law. 

The letter of 8. Leo the Great (Bishop of Rome 440-461) 6 5. ate the 
to Nicetas, Bishop of Aquileia, shews that the barbaric inroad ὦ 
under Attila brought about cases parallel to that of Fortunius 
and Ursa; only, as the captives were usually men, it was in 
the cases of the wives that second marriages had commonly 
been contracted. $8. Leo’s decision is the same as that of 
S. Innocent. In all eases the first marriage is to be reverted In cases 
to; yet without condemnation of the action of the women who ies 
had believed their husbands to be dead. In the case of any (uring 


absence 
woman who might persist in remaining with the second the first 

marriage 
husband although the first had returned, 5. Leo decides that (oye ” 
communion must be refused. Oe! 


v4 Ὁ 


Arabic 
Canons 

of S. 
Hippolytus. 


Case of a 
Christian 
who casts 
off a 
concubine 
and 
marries. 


340 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The notices of this period may be concluded with three 
authorities of uncertain date and character, viz. (1) the Arabic 
Canons of 8. Hippolytus (so-called), (2) the writer commonly 
named Ambrosiaster, and (5) the work once attributed to S. 
Chrysostom, which is known as the Opus Imperfectum ὅν 
Matthaeum. | 

(1) De Haneberg, the learned editor of the Arabic Canons 
of 8. Hippolytus, claims that they are the genuine productions 
of the Father whose name they bear. 8. Hippolytus was ἃ 
contemporary of Origen, and if De Haneberg’s opinion be 
correct, the canons should have been noticed among the 
authorities of the early part of the third century. The more 
usual opinion, however, assigns these Arabic Canons to another 
source, and to a later date, perhaps the fourth or fifth century. 

The 16th Canon, which is given above in De Haneberg’s 
Latin translation, is headed: “ Of him who has a concubine, 
and wishes to cast her off, and marry another woman.” The 
body of the canon runs: “If a Christian, after that he has 
lived with a particular concubine, who has borne him a son, 
desire to cast her off and marry another woman, he is blood- 
cuilty (lit. a slayer of man), unless perhaps he have taken her 
in fornication.” 

The Roman law on the subject of concubines will be referred 
to in the chapter on polygamy. A concubine might not be 
entertained together with a wife, or with any other recognised 
concubine. Union with a concubine resembled what in modern 
language has been called a left-handed marriage, and was 
commonly characterised by disparity of social position. The 
bond which united a man to his wife might indeed be severed 
at will by divorce, but it was presumably lasting; the bond 
which bound him to his concubine might be severed at will 
without the inecurrence of odium, and with an entire absence of 
formality, while from the first 1t was presumably temporary. 
The Church, therefore, as will be seen later, was prepared 
either to ratify or to ignore such unions as the particular case 
might require. If a baptized Christian wished to continue 
such an union, and remain in the communion of the Church, 
he was at liberty to do so without incurring the secular restric- 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 341 


tions of marriage, if he accepted its Christian obligations. On 
the other hand, if he was not willing to be bound to his 
concubine by the obligations of marriage, he was required, as a 
condition of communion, to put her away, as in that case the 
union would be simply a union of fornication. 

The canon of 8. Hippolytus, whatever its date, is a fair 
instance of the attitude of the Church in the matter. The 
birth of a son is made the external test. If a particular 
_ concubine (that is to say, not the object of casual lust, but a 
partner recognised by the law) have borne the man a son, then 
if instead of admitting her as his wife in the Christian sense, 
he cast her off, he is blood-guilty (“a slayer of man”). By 
driving the woman to seek other relations he murders her soul. 
If, however, she have not been faithful to him, he need not feel 
under any obligation to retain her as a wife. 

Even if this canon be really due to 8. Hippolytus, and there- 
fore referable to the beginning of the third century, it will not 
affect the conclusions which have been already arrived at for 
the earliest period of Christian history. It does not afford 
sanction to the severance of any union which has ever yet been 
recognised by the Church as a marriage. It is simply an 
acknowledgment of the fact’ that no Christian is bound in 
conscience to accept in marriage a woman with whom he has 
been connected in a different relation, and who has not proved 
faithful. If the concubine has been faithful, and has become 
the mother of a son, then, notwithstanding the license of the 
secular law, the man is really bound in conscience to accept 
the tie as that of Christian marriage. The canon may be 
compared with the recommendations of 8. Francis Xavier to 
the Portuguese of Goa in the sixteenth century. 8. Francis 
found unsanctioned unions with native women extremely pre- 
valent, and made it his office to bring about a better state of 
things. When he saw that the union was a happy one, and 
promised well, he endeavoured to prevail upon the parties to 
seek the benediction of the Church, and so accept the full 
obligations of Christian marriage. Where, on the other hand, 
he saw no such promise, he endeavoured to induce the man to 
discard his companion. 


Ambro- 
Siaster. 


‘Husband 
may 
remarry, 
if he have 
put away 
an offend- 
ing wife.” 


The 
innocent 
wife may 
not 
remarry. 


The ‘‘Opus 
imper- 
fectum in 
Mat- 
thaeum.” 


Summary 
of the 
period. 


342 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(2) The so-called Ambrosiaster is the unknown author of 
the Commentaria in xiii Epistolas beatt Pauli, which were 
formerly ascribed to 8. Ambrose. All scholars have long been 
agreed that these commentaries ought not to be ascribed to 
S. Ambrose, but it is not so easy to say who the true author 
was. A passage of S. Augustine cites what appears to be a 
quotation from these commentaries as the work of Saint Hilary 
(sanctus Hilarius), and this has led to the surmise that the 
writer may have been Hilary the Sardinian, deacon of the 
Roman Church, though it is not likely that 5. Augustine would 
have spoken of a schismatic as sanctus. However this may be, 
the author, now generally spoken of as Ambrosiaster, is the 
only Western writer of this period, with the exception of 
Lactantius, who upholds the right of Christian husbands to 
remarriage after divorce. He says plainly that “the husband 
may marry, if he have put away an offending wife; the hus- 
band not being bound by the law as the wife is; for ‘the head 
of the woman is the man.’” On the other hand, “it is not 
permitted to a woman to remarry, if she have sent away her 
husband by reason of fornication or apostasy . .. because the 
meaner part has not quite the same rule to abide by as the 
more dignified.” Here the unknown writer takes up a position 
which is repudiated by all the great doctors of Christianity. 
He is of opinion that there is an inherent inequality in the 
man and the woman, which involves unequal rights and duties 
as the result of the marriage bond. The woman in all cases 
remains bound; the man, in the specified case, becomes free. 

(3) The Opus Imperfectum im Matthaeum, formerly ascribed 
to S. Chrysostom, appears to be the work of an Arian writer, 
probably of the sixth century. The writer holds that a man 
who retains an adulterous wife is “the partner of her turpi- 
tude,” and therefore that he is bound to put her away. But 
he does not appear to recognise any right to remarriage. 

The teaching of the period from Constantine to Justinian 
has involved a long, and it is to be feared, tedious investigation, 
which may now be summarized. 

1. It is generally admitted, alike by Councils and by the 


1 §. Augustine, Contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum, lib. iv. ¢. 7. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 343 


Christian authors, that a husband may put away for πορνεία. τ: A 
His right to put away in this case is denied by no council and δες Be 
by no writer. ἘΣΣῚ ἐξ: 

2. There is general but not unquestioned agreement that a2 a 
man ought to put away his wife for πορνεία. Thus the Council πόροι 
of Neo-Caesarea, S. Asterius, Theodoret, 8. Jerome, and the put away 
Opus Imperfectum. 8S. Augustine in his earlier years held that Pat 
the husband lay under no obligation to put away the erring 
wife. In the fetractations he corrected this view, accepting 
that more generally current. No other writer and no council 
admits that the man is not bound to put away an adulterous 
wife. The conventional morality of the Empire, especially in 
the East, required the man to put away. 

3. The wife may put away an adulterous husband, according 3. A wife 
to Ὁ. Basil, 8. Ambrose, δ. Jerome, and 8. Augustine. No ἌΣ ΤΣ 
writer and no council denies the right of the wife to put away. τον νον 
Conventional feeling in the East is, however, strongly opposed but con- 


. ° Ξ ventional 
to the exercise of the right. Much the same feeling appears feeling 
to have existed in Gaul. | SS 


4. The only writer who seems to be in favour of the view 4. A wife 
that a wife is bound to put away an adulterous husband is 5S. ate ρὺ 
Jerome. He says: “It follows that whatsoever is commanded enter ere 
to men applies in addition to women. For it cannot be that an husband. 
adulterous wife is to be dismissed, and an adulterous husband 
to be retained. If ‘one who is joined to a harlot maketh one 
body,’ therefore also she who is associated with a whoremonger 
and unclean person is made one body with him.” In the 
general view, however, no such obligation on the part of the 
wife was recognised. 

5. That πορνεία means adultery or unfaithfulness after 5. 
marriage is the view of the Councils of Arles and Neo- 7? be 
Caesarea, of Lactantius, 8. Basil, 8. Epiphanius, 8. Gregory adultery. 
Nazianzen, 8. Asterius, 8. Chrysostom, Theodoret, 8. Ambrose, 

S. Chromatius, S. Jerome, and 8. Augustine. No authotity, ,, 
denies that it includes adultery. authority 

6. No authority can be cited as affirming that πορνεία, as ep 


the cause which justifies putting away, means prenuptial as Be 
: Ν : β : nuptia 
unchastity. No instance of divorce for this cause is recorded. unchastity. 


7. Some 
writers 
take it to 
include 
spiritual 
fornication. 
8, 9, 10, 11. 
In the 
West all 
remarriage 
after 
divorce 
excluded. 
In the East 
the 
question 

is open as 
regards the 
husband. 


12. 
Adulterous 
wife not 

by most 
admitted to 
restoration 
on 
penitence. 
Theodoret 
and 5. 
Augustine 
for 
restoration, 


344 HOLY MATRIMONY 


7. Some writers would extend the meaning of πορνεία to 
include various forms of spiritual fornication. So 8. Basil, 
S. Epiphanius, 8. Augustine. 

8,9, 10,11. On the point of remarriage after divorce the 
Churches of the West are more decided than the Churches of 
the East. In the West the Council of Arles and the African 
Code, with S. Ambrose, 8. Jerome, and 8. Augustine, decline to 
admit remarriage after divorce, even in the case of the un- 
offending husband, and where the offence of the wife is 
adultery. On the other hand, in this particular case Lactantius 
and the writer known as Ambrosiaster admit remarriage; but 
apparently in no other case. In the East 8. Basil does not 
approve remarriage after divorce in any case, but 1s not pre- 
pared to visit such remarriage with penal discipline in the 
case of the man, whether the divorce was caused by his wife’s 
sin or by his own. Epiphanius admits remarriage when the 
man has lost his wife by “fornication, adultery, or other evil 
cause”; and no less so in the case of the woman who has put 
away her husband. He may perhaps admit remarriage even in 
the case of the guilty party. Of 8S. Gregory Nazianzen it 
cannot be said that he affirms or denies the right of remarriage. 
S. Asterius admits remarriage in the case of the innocent man. 
S. Timothy of Alexandria gives an oracular answer. S. Chry- 
sostom apparently does not admit remarriage after divorce in 
any case. Theodoret appears to have given contradictory judg- 
ments. Speaking generally it may be said of the period under 
review, that it shows the Western Churches maintaining the 
entire indissolubility of the marriage tie except by death, while 
the Churches of the East, under the pressure of the secular 
law and of the conventional morality of the Eastern Christians, 
utter an uncertain sound. 

12. Whether an adulteress might be restored by her husband 
upon penitence, is a question which in the period under review 
was commonly answered in the East by a negative. The in- 
equality in the treatment of the sexes which pervaded Roman 
custom and the Roman law had entered deeply into Christian 
feeling and practice. The Council of Neo-Caesarea will not 
allow a clericus, who retains a wife once guilty of adultery, to 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 345 


continue the exercise of his sacred functions. 5. Basil is 
against restoration. ὃ. Chrysostom, quoting the prohibition of 
Deuteronomy, says that it is “in entire harmony with Christ.” 
Theodoret, on the other hand, says that our Lord, “by barring 
connexion with another, compels the party, whichever it be, to 
return to the former marriage.” But he may not have been 
considering the case of the adulteress. In the Western Church, 
S. Jerome pronounces against restoration of the offending wife. 
Ὁ. Augustine, on the other hand, maintains the mercy of the 
early centuries. Repeatedly insisting on the rightfulness, and 
indeed upon the duty, of restoration, he says in the De Conjugiis 
Adulterims that the husband “has no right now to call her an 
adulteress, whose crime, she being penitent, he believes to be 
blotted out by Gop’s mercy.” 

13. 8. Augustine is thus of opinion that the guilty wife not 
only may be, but ought to be, restored upon penitence. Putting 
aside the doubtful case of Theodoret, the other writers of the 
period admit no such duty. 

14,15. Whether the guilty husband may be or ought to be 
received by the wife upon penitence was hardly a practical 
question. The guilty husband, penitent or not penitent, and 
whether he continued in his sin or not, was by the custom of 
the time permitted to continue his marriage relations. 

16. No writer or council allows the guilty wife to be re- 
ceived by her husband so long as the adultery continues. 
S. Augustine had indeed in his early years said of divorce, 
even for adultery, “This is permitted, not commanded”; but in 
the Retractations he recalls this statement. 

17. On the point of the reception by the wife of the im- 
penitent husband who continues in his adultery, the Christian 
writers find themselves in serious conflict with the lax morality 
of the age. S. Basil says that “custom enjoins that husbands 
even living in adultery, and going on in whoredoms, be retained 
by their wives.” “And so the wife must receive her husband 
coming home from his uncleanness, but the husband must send 
away her who is defiled from his house. Of all this again it 
is not easy to give account, but custom has thus provided.” 
S. Gregory Nazianzen, remarking that the custom and the law 


15. Sr 
Augustine 
holds that 
she ought 
to be 
restored. 


14, 15. No 
question 
but that the 
penitent 
husband 
might be 
received. 


16. No 
authority 
allows the 
guilty wife 
to be 
restored so 
long as the 
adultery 
continues. 
17. The 
husband 
who con- 
tinued in 
his sin was 
commonly 
received by 
the wife. 


18. 5. Matt. 
xix. 9g not 
cited by 
any writer 
to 

support re- 
marriage. 


346 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of the Roman Empire countenance this grave inequality, de- 
clares, “ I receive not this enactment. I praise not this custom.” 
S. Asterius, complaining that by custom and law all impurity 
is allowed to the man, points out that divine and human laws 
differ. §. Augustine says, “Who would endure an adulterous 
wife? Yet the woman is bidden to endure an adulterous 
husband. What justice! Why, I ask thee?” Exsuperius of 
Toulouse, writing to 8. Innocent I., says that “men who are 
communicants do not consort with wives guilty of adultery, 
while, on the other hand, wives are seen to remain in the 
fellowship of adulterous husbands.” The Christian writers of 
the period may be said to be at one in their condemnation of 
the unequal tyranny of the custom of the day, which prac- 
tically required a wife to submit to any guilt of adultery on 
the part of the husband. No Christian writer of this period, 
however, denies that the woman may remain with her husband 
in such circumstances if it 1s her wish to do so. 

18. The verse S. Matt. xix. 9 is not cited by any writer as 
supporting the right of remarriage after divorce for adultery. 
S. Basil refers to it, but only to deduce an absolute prohibition 
of remarriage. 8. Gregory Nazianzen says, apparently of this 
verse, “ It is not clear which side is so endangered, the divorcing 
party or the divorced,” probably reading μοιχᾶται without the 
καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην; S. Chrysostom quotes the verse, but not in 
sanction of remarriage; S. Jerome similarly. 8S. Augustine, 
quoting the verse in the form familiar to us in the Textus 
Receptus and the Authorised Version, admits a difficulty of 
interpretation, but concludes notwithstanding that “if the rule 
is the same for both, in both it is adultery to unite one’s self to 
another, even when the separation was for uncleanness.” 


- 


C. Lhe Hast after Justinian. 
AUTHORITIES. 
THE Councin ΙΝ T'RULLO (QUINISEXT). 
Canon. 87. 
Ἢ τὸν ἄνδρα καταλιποῦσα μοιχαλίς ἐστιν, εἰ ἐπ’ ἄλλον ἦλθε, κατὰ 
Ν. ε at Ν ἴω ig > ox ie / / ” n 
TOV LEepoV και θεῖον Βασίλειον, εκ ΤΉ 5 Tepepiov προφητείας αριστα TOUTO 


7 
avaheEdpevov’ ὅτι, Kav γένηται γυνὴ ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ, οὐκ ἐπιστρέψει πρὸς 


so” ᾶϑινν τ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 347 


X ” > nh a > Ν , 4 \ 7 « ” 
Tov ἄνδρα αὐτῆς, ἀλλὰ μιαινομήνη μιανθήσεται" Kat πάλιν: Ὃ ἔχων 
μοιχαλίδα, ἄφρων καὶ ἀσεβής. Ki οὖν φανῇ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀλόγως ἀνα- 

7 ε \ / 2 Ν " ε δὲ 2 / ἭἫἭ δὲ / 
χωρήσασα, ὃ μὲν συγγνώμης ἐστὶν ἄξιος, ἡ δὲ ἐπιτιμίων. ἑ συγγνώμη 
τούτῳ πρὸς τὸ κοινωνεῖν TH ἐκκλησίᾳ δοθήσεται. 

Ὃ μέντοι καταλιμπάνων τὴν νομίμως αὐτῷ συναφθεῖσαν γυναῖκα, 
καὶ ἑτέραν ἀγόμενος, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ἀπόφασιν, τῷ τῆς μοιχείας 
ὑπόκειται κρίματι. 

, \ \ A ΄ ε δ , 3 Ν 

Κεκανόνισται γὰρ παρὰ τῶν πατέρων ἡμων, τοὺς τοιούτους ἐνιαυτὸν 

΄ὕ , > an Peay ε ΄ \ 7 ¢ δ 
προκλαίειν, διετίαν ἐπακροᾶσθαι, τριετίαν ὑποπίπτειν, καὶ τῴ ἑβδόμῳ 


συνίστασθαι τοῖς πιστοῖς, καὶ οὕτω τῆς προσφορᾶς καταξιοῦσθαι. 


Canon 538. 
) \ / ε ΔΌΣ τὰς a > ΄ A A , 
᾿ὑπειδὴ μείζων ἡ κατὰ τὸ πνεῦμα οἰκειότης τῆς τῶν σωμάτων συν- 
/ » Ν y” / Ἂν > lay «ε \ v2 
αφείας, ἔγνωμεν δὲ EV τισι τόποις τινὰς EK τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ σωτηριώδους 
fr a fr 7 
βαπτίσματος παῖδας ἀναδεχομένους, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο, ταῖς ἐκείνων 
/ 
PNT pace χηρεούσαις γαμικὸν συναλλάσσοντας συνοικέσιον, ὁρίζομεν, 
ἀπὸ τοῦ παρόντος μηδὲν τοιοῦτον πραχθῆναι. Ei δέ τινες μετὰ τὸν 
παρόντα κανόνα φωραθεῖεν τοῦτο ποιοῦντες, πρωτοτύπως μὲν οἱ τοιοῦτοι 
ἀφιστάσθωσαν τοῦ παρανόμου τούτου συνοικεσίου, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τοῖς 


lat Vd Ψ ͵7ὕ [« 4 
TWV TOPVEVOVT WV ETT LT ULLOUS ὑποβλήθωσαν. 


The history of the law of marriage in the East from the Intro- 
ductory 
time of Justinian onwards is the history of deplorable weak- cisracent 
ness on the part of the Christian Church, when confronted with an 
the secular legislation. In one particular only can it be said mie 
that the Eastern Church made an adequate stand. She never οὗ the 


Eastern 
tolerated the fatal facility with which the Roman law accorded Churches 


divorce by mutual consent alone; and after a long struggle, fe 
which lasted till the tenth century, she finally swept the abuse oe 
away. But, perhaps because the struggle was here so hard, on 

all other points the Eastern Church appears to have permitted 

the secular legislation to rule the conduct of her children; and 

at the present day the list of grounds on which divorce is 
accorded with permission to remarry is little more than the 

echo of the old Roman legislation, and reads as if the Church 

of the East were well content to suffer divorce “for every 
cause.” Her practice in this matter is so greatly divergent 
from that of Western Christendom, that it may fairly be asked 
whether if every doctrinal difference between East and West 


Completely 
recognised 
by Roman 
law. 


Opposed by 
Christian 
teachers. 


348 HOLY MATRIMONY 


were swept away, it would even thus be possible for the 
Churches to unite, so long as the practice of the East in the 
matter of marriage and divorce remains what it is. It is 
impossible to reconcile the practice of the two great sections of 
Christendom by any admissible compromise. If the Western 
Church has been right, as this treatise will hold her to have 
been right, in asserting that there is no dissolution of the 
marriage bond save by death, then the Hastern Church is 
terribly in the wrong. If, on the other hand, the practice of 
the Eastern Church can be justified, it can only follow that the 
Western Church has bound burdens on men’s shoulders all too 
grievous to be borne, and has made hearts sad which Gop had 
not made sad. Between the East and the West it is necessary 
to choose. 

It will be convenient in this chapter to consider in the first 
place the history of the practice of divorce by mutual consent 
alone (διαζύγιον κατὰ συναίνεσιν, divortium ex consensu), and 
then to go on to consider the history of divorce for definite 
reasons assigned (διαζύγιον κατὰ πρόφασιν εὔλογον, divortiwm 
ex ratronabilr causa, repudiuin). 


Gi.) Divorce by mutual consent. 


In the last chapter the progress of marriage legislation from 
Constantine to Justinian was briefly traced, and the influence 
of Christian ideas in connexion with it noticed; and it will be 
remembered that there was no moment during the whole of 
that period in which it was not open to any married couple to 
separate finally under the sanction of the civil law, by the mere 
expression of their mutual consent. So far as that law was 
concerned, husband and wife had but to agree that they would 
be husband and wife no longer, and they might go their several 
ways without fear and without reproach, free to contract 
marriage as they would. Against this unrestrained license the 
teachers of the Christian Church protested all along. They 
taught that Christians must understand that there was one law 
for the Empire and another for the Church. 

Even those writers, whether in East or West, who prior to 
Justinian are found admitting remarriage after divorce in cases 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 349 


of adultery, do so rather by the way, in the very process of 
earnestly condemning the existing license of remarriage after 
unjustified repudiations. Thus Lactantius, indicating to Con- 
stantine what were the “Divine maxims,’ and how they 
differed from the law of the Empire, impressed upon him that 
“he is an adulterer who has married one dismissed by her 
husband, as also he who except for the crime of adultery hath 
dismissed his wife to marry another.” 58. Asterius of Amasea 
was dealing with a community whom he charges as “ye who 
trade in wives, who exchange them as garments from time to 
time ..., who marry the dowry and the property, but count 
the persons matter of gain and traftic; who on slight offence 
write a bill of divorce, and leave, as it were, many widows 
living. Make up your minds, be entirely convinced of it, that ’ 
marriages are severed by nothing save death and adultery.” 
S. Epiphanius, though the passage may be corrupt, is willing, 
like the present Eastern Church, to admit remarriage “when 
separation hath ensued for whatever ground, fornication, or 
adultery, or other evil cause”; but he requires a ground, or 
evil cause, which the law did not. S. Basil, on whose con- 
cessions the later Eastern Church has largely based her action, 
conceded the admission to communion without penance, of 
persons remarrying after divorce for adultery, but did not 
concede it in cases of divorce generally. The spirit, therefore, 
of those who made concessions was the spirit of those who 
retire from what seems to them, however mistakenly, a less 
important outwork, for the purpose of defending the inner 
citadel; and their expressions of concession are in fact obiter 
dicta, let fall by the way, while their attention was fixed on 
points which seemed of more vital moment. 

The facility of divorce by mutual consent was first interfered ,amittea 
with by the legislation of Justinian. In 536 Α.Ὁ. Justinian aes 
himself had laid down in the 22nd Novel that mutual consent in his zand 
was entirely sufficient to effect a divorce; but in 542 a.p., in N° 
the 117th Novel, he withdrew the permission to effect such Forbidden 
divorces, by enacting that only those-divorces were in future to ΣΥΝ 
be admitted which were based upon the grounds specified in in his x:7th 
the Novel itself, notwithstanding any other grounds of divorce ie: 


Such 
divorces 
valid 
notwith- 
standing, 
although 
irregular, 


Divorce by 
consent 
again 
legalised by 
Justin II. 


Condemned 
by the 
Council jn 
Trullo. 


350 HOLY MATRIMONY 


which might be found, whether in the ancient or in the newer 
legislation. This enactment was confirmed in the year 556 A.D. 
by the 134th Novel, which expressly prohibits the dissolution 
of marriage by consent. It is, however, evident that the old 
toman view of marriage and divorce, as matters which lay 
within the province of the individual citizen rather than within 
the province of the State, had considerable influence, and that, 
notwithstanding the Novels, some persons did effect divorces 
by consent, and that so far as validity was concerned these 
divorcees stood. Justinian, in the same Novels in which he 
enacts prohibitions, assigns penalties in the case of persons 
who should, in spite of the prohibitions, effect divorce. Such 
persons were to be confined to a monastery, and forbidden to 
remarry. Theodore of Hermopolis, who wrote a brief of the 
134th Novel, remarks that a divorce so prohibited, though 
immoral in character, was notwithstanding good in law (κακῶς 
μὲν γίνεται πλὴν Eppwra).t At the same time the preamble of 
the repealing Novel of Justinian’s successor, Justin [1., shews 
that the prohibition had been very generally complied with, 
although its provisions had given grave dissatisfaction. 

The Novel referred to is the second Novel of Justin 11. It 
was issued in 566 A.D., and declares that the legislation of 
Justinian by withholding the recognition of divorce by consent 
had developed hatred and evil passions. Justinian’s prohibitions 
had therefore been largely regarded during the twenty-four 
years during which they had stood unrepealed; but in 566 A.v. 
the lawfulness of divorce by mutual consent was again as fully 
recognised by the law of the Empire as if Christianity had 
been unknown in it. For nearly two hundred years the statute 
books of the Eastern Empire shew no sign of amelioration. 
The Church indeed at no time acquiesced in the facility of 
divorce thus sanctioned by the secular law. It was during this 
period that the canon of the Council 7 Zrullo, to be presently 
noticed, was passed. But it was not till the Eclogue of the 
Emperor Leo III. (the Isaurian) and his son Constantine, 
which was enacted in 740 «A.D., that a civil statute of the 
Empire abolished the license of divorce by consent. The 


1 Zhishman, Eherecht der Ortientalischen Kirche, p. 104. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Oo 


preamble of the Eclogue is well worthy of remark. The Further 

Mosaic history of the creation, and the gospel narrative of our ἄρῃς ὦ 

Lord’s teaching, alike find place in it as reasonable sources of See 
perors, 

legal principles. The first had ruled that in marriage there 

was “one flesh”; the second that what Gop had joined together 

man might not put asunder, except for fornication. “This law 

we now desire to follow and obey, and besides these things 

desire to add nothing further.” As, however, many persons 

severed their unions on insufficient grounds, the present law 

would specify the grounds on which alone marriages might be 

dissolved. Four grounds of admissible divorce were specified. 

It was not however easy, even in the eighth century, for the 

clearest enactments of the legislative power to uproot so 

inveterate a practice as was that of divorce by consent. The 

Emperors Leo IV. and Constantine (776-780 A.D.) were forced 

to legislate again, this time in a more penal sense. Every 

divorce effected by “vicious agreement” (κακῇ συμῴφωνίᾳ) was 

forbidden under the penalty of a sensible fine, and carried with 

it the annulment of any subsequent marriage. 

We next come to a Constitution in a contrary sense, which 
cannot be certainly assigned to the name of any Emperor. 
Zacharia places it after the Novels of Irene and Nicephorus, 
which would bring it to the middle of the ninth century. Ii, 
however, we are to ascribe any importance to the fact that the 
Canons of the Patriarch Nicephorus (806-815 A.D.) recognise 
that divorce by consent stands good before the secular law, the 
undated Constitution may perhaps be best assigned to the end 
of the eighth century. For the sake of peace in the married 
state it re-establishes divorce by consent, and withdraws all 
menaces and penalties which had been directed against it, 
affirming that the retention of the old facility of divorce was 
alike to the advantage of the parties and to that of the 
community. From the Eclogue Privata aucta, which may 
perhaps be assigned to the time of Basil the Macedonian 
(867 A.D.), it is evident that divorce by consent was then 
recognised as valid. 

At last, however, at the end:of the ninth century, we find 


1 Zhishman, Lherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 105. 


BHZ HOLY MATRIMONY 


Divorce by Justinian’s prohibition of these divorces re-enforced, and never 
ate again relaxed. The Prochiron of 870 a.D., the Epanagoge of 
cptenee the Emperors Basil, Leo, and Alexander which appeared about 
ofthe sth 884 aA.D., and the Basilica promulgated between 905 and 
century: 911 A.D., all interdict divorce by consent. 
It must be confessed that the marriage laws of the Eastern 
Empire, regarded as the laws of a professedly Christian com- 
munity, are shameful evidence of unworthy living. But it 
must not be forgotten that the responsible teachers of the 
Eastern Church do not appear to have ever swayed in this 
most vital matter; that they waged their battle against the 
party of laxity with varying success for many centuries; and 
that to them it is due that from the end of the ninth century 
onwards the laws of the states of Eastern Christendom have 
continued so far at one with the law of Christ, that they 
uniformly prohibit the ancient license of consensual divorce. 
peer rite The earliest Christian testimony upon the subject has already 
Church. been noticed. It will serve no sufficient purpose to attempt to 
follow the utterances of individual Christian writers in the 
ages which succeed Justinian. On this point there appears to 
have been no difference of opinion. But the 87th Canon of 
the Council ὧν Trullo (692 A.D.), which was put forth, as has 
been seen, during a period in which consensual divorce was 
fully legalised, is worthy of notice. The lax repealing Novel 
of Justin 11. had been in force for 126 years; yet the Council 
expressly renewed former prohibitions, and attached the 
heaviest ecclesiastical penalties to any man who should leave 
his lawful wife, and marry another. It was no doubt largely 
in consequence of the bold stand thus made by the Council wm 
Trullo that the Eclogue of Leo the Isaurian (740 A.D.), as we 
have seen, put a stop to the legality of consensual divorces. 


(11.) Divorce on specified grounds. 
Wer ore: Leaving now the subject of divorce by mutual consent, we 


visions of. may proceed to consider that of divorce on specified grounds. 
lawnot It is here that the wide gulf which separates the East from 


oR sane the West becomes painfully apparent. By the time of Justinian 


the ill-advised opportunist policy of the Eastern Church, to 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE aoe 


which even the great S. Basil had seen fit to condescend, had 
completed its fatal work. Of the whole long list of specified 
erounds of divorce which were admitted by the secular law, 
only one, that of absence without tidings, appears to have been 
either repudiated or even questioned by this too-complacent 
Church. Zhishman, whose valuable work should be consulted 
by any who wish to pursue the study of the marriage law of 
the Eastern Churches, remarks: “The enactments of the 
Emperors and Princes as to grounds of divorce never met with 
an ecclesiastical contradiction. No Council, no Patriarch, no 
Bishop of the East has ever in this matter called the Emperors 
to account, assigned penalties to them, or forced them to the 
repeal of their enactments.”! Under these circumstances it 
would answer no purpose to burden this chapter with many 
quotations. The Christianity of the East had made up its 
mind that adultery was the legitimate ground of a divorce 
which carried with it, at least for the innocent party, the night 
of remarriage. It had no less made up its mind that divorce 
with the right of remarriage might be accorded in the many 
other cases specified by the secular law. For more than 
thirteen centuries this has been the attitude of the Church 
of the East. 

It will be sufficient for the purposes of this work if we Grounds | 
proceed to state what are the grounds of divorce actually actually 
admitted by the Churches of the East at the present day. λα θά 
They are the grounds of divorce admitted by the laws of 
Justinian, with certain modifications introduced in later times. 

In the Eastern Churches of the present day divorce is ad- 
mitted as follows: 


A. Grounds for divorce with penalty attached. 
High treason. 
Designs by either of the partners on the life of the other. 
Adultery. : 
Circumstances affording presumption of adultery, or 
equivalent to adultery. 
5. The procuring of abortion. 


oo bo 





1 Zhishman, Bherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 115. 


Be IX 


354 HOLY MATRIMONY 


6. Difference of religion arising from the conversion to 
Christianity of one of the partners. 

7. The reception by either partner of his or her own child 
from the baptismal font. 


B. Grounds for dworce without penalty attached. 


1. Impotence. 

2. Absence without tidings received, Captivity, and Slavery. 
3. Insanity. 

4, Leprosy. 

5. The undertaking of monastic obligations. 

6. Episcopal Consecration.? 


A. 1. High Treason (τὸ φρονῆσαι κατὰ βασιλέως). 

High Treason was assigned as a ground of divorce by Theo- 
dosius 11. and Valentinian IIL. in 449 a.p., and repeated by 
Justinian in his 22nd Novel. The reason given is that High 
Treason is the greatest of all crimes. For the same reason 
High Treason appears in the 117th Novel of Justinian as the 
first of the admitted grounds of divorce. Divorce is decreed 
as due to the offence considered in itself, and not merely 
because of other penalties which may be incurred, as, for 
instance, banishment or captivity. Collusion of High Treason 
is also recognised as ground for divorce. 


A. 2. Designs by either of the partners on the life of the other 
(τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι θάτερον TH τοῦ ἑτέρου Cun). 

This comes next in order among the grounds of divorce. 
The reason assigned is that conjugal fidelity is more seriously 
infringed by designs against life than even by adultery; and 
further, inasmuch as the Eastern Church knows nothing of 
simple separation of life, or divorce “from bed and board,” the 
separation which becomes necessary under circumstances of 
the kind now contemplated has to be decreed as a complete 
divorce. | . 

To constitute a ground of divorce, it is essential that the 
designs should really affect the dfe of the partner. Poison 


1 Zhishman, pp. 119, 731. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 355 


and the use of deadly weapons are obvious evidence; but even 
merely to threaten the life of the partner is held to be suf- 
ficient ground for divorce. It is also ground for divoree if one 
partner is aware that the life of the other is in danger, and yet 
withholds knowledge of the danger alike from the partner 
himself and from the proper authorities. Designs on the life 
of the partner were recognised as a ground of repudiation in 
all the marriage legislation of Justinian; in the Code, in the 
22nd Novel, and in the 117th Novel The ground has been 
accepted in all the subsequent legislation. 


A. 3. Adultery (μοιχεία). 

Adultery is defined as the carnal union of a wife with a man 
not her husband, or of a man with the wife of another man. 
The sin of a husband with an unmarried woman is not in the 
Eastern Churches reckoned as adultery. Divorce is not decreed 


Gi.) When the complainant is shewn to have committed the 
same offence, or to be in collusion with the offending 
party, or to have accepted without protest the con- 
tinuance of the unchastity. 


(11.) When the complainant has already either (a) directly 
forgiven the offending party, or (Ὁ) by the resumption 
of marital relations has imphed forgiveness. 

(ii1.) When the innocent party has not made formal com- 
plaint within the period specified by the law. 


Prenuptial unchastity is not a ground of divorce, except 
when it has occurred subsequently to the betrothal, in which 
case it is treated as adultery. Pregnancy by a third person at 
the time of marriage is also admitted as a ground of divorce. 

In the East the guilty parties in a divorce suit are under no 
circumstances permitted to marry one another. Even the 
death of the husband does not remove the bar. By the 134th 
Novel of Justinian an adulteress was to be confined for life in 
a convent. Leo the Philosopher added to this the cutting off 
of the offender’s nose. This particular punishment appears to 

LO eValL/on 2. τ ιν 29 cap, 16.§1:;-Nov.-117; cap.-8, 8:9: 


2 Zhishman, p. 733. 
ZA Ὁ 


356 HOLY MATRIMONY 


have been favoured in Eastern countries. In India in the 
present day it is sometimes resorted to by an offended husband, 
but there, it need hardly be said, his action is accounted 
criminal. Later enactments of the Eastern Emperors modify 
the penalties assigned. 

Not only is it forbidden to the guilty parties to marry each 
other under any circumstances, but it is forbidden to the guilty 
wife to marry at all. An adulterer—that is to say, a man who 
has sinned with a married woman—may marry a third person 
when he has fulfilled his term of canonical penance. 

Adultery was an admitted ground of divorce in the legis- 
lation of Justinian, and has always been so accounted in 
subsequent times.! 


A. 4. Circumstances affording presumption of adultery, or 
equivalent to adultery. 


(a) Offences of the wife. 

(a) When the wife against the will of the husband shares 
the repasts of strange men, or visits the baths in 
their society. 

(8) When the wife without just cause and without the 
consent of her husband stays away from home in 
strange houses other than the house of her parents. 

(y) When the wife without the knowledge and consent of 
her husband, or against his command, has attended 
the circus, the theatre, or the amphitheatre. 

All three of these grounds of divorce appear in the 
marriage legislation of Justinian, and have been since main- 
tained. 


(b) Offences of the husband. 


(a) When the husband has designed to betray the chastity 
of the wife to other men. 


(8) When the husband has charged the wife with adultery, 
and failed to prove it. . 


1 Zhishman, pp. 734 sqq. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE Hi 


(y) When in the house, in which the husband resides with 
his wife, he has unlawful intercourse with another 
woman; or when in the same place, but in another 
house, he has intercourse with another woman, and 
refuses to give up his unchastity after repeated 
warnings given to him, whether by his parents, or 
by his wife’s parents, or by other respectable 
persons. 


These three grounds of divorce also appeared in the legis- 
lation of Justinian, and have also been since maintained.! 


A. 5. The procuring of abortion (ἡ ἄμβλωσις, ἡ ἔκτρωσις, ὁ 
φόνος ἐμβρύων διὰ φαρμάκων). 

The procuring of abortion, which defeats one of the aims of 
the Divine ordinance of marriage, is on that account considered 
in the East to be an adequate ground of divorce. The preven- 
tion of conception is included under the head of procuring 
abortion. The offence of procuring abortion was punished with 
the severest penalties both by Church and State in the 
earliest centuries of the Christian era, but it was not till the 
22nd Novel of Justinian, in 536 A.D., that it became a recog- 
nised ground of divorce. It does not appear as a ground of 
divorce in the 117th Novel of Justinian, but Leo the Philoso- 
pher, in his 31st Novel, re-instates it; and from the date of 
this Novel no change appears to have been made.” 


A. 6. Difference of Religion arising from the conversion to 
Christianity of one of the partners (τὸ κατὰ τὴν πίστιν 
διάφορον). : 

It will be seen in chapter VIII. that this ground of divorce, 
which deals with the dissoluble marriage of non-Christians, is 
accepted by the West. It is to be noted, however, that in the 
East, for the purpose of divorce, the unbeliever (ὁ ἄπιστος) 
may be— 

1. An unbeliever never yet connected with Christianity. 

2. A ecatechumen, 


4) 


2. An apostate. 


“SD 





1 Zhishman, pp. 748 sqq. 2 Ibid. Ὁ. 753. 


358 ; HOLY MATRIMONY 


In the case of an apostate, who had once been bound by 
Christian marriage, the West would hold the marriage to be 
indissoluble. The East is ready to sever the bond. 

According to Zhishman divorce may be decreed— 


((.) When the unbeliever refuses to abide with the believer. 


Gi.) When the Christian partner 1s convinced that he will 
not be able to convert the unbeliever to the Christian religion. 


(iii.) When the unbeliever hinders the believer from the 
exercise of the Christian religion. 

(iv.) When the unbeliever insists that the believer shall take 
part in strange worship. 


Of these grounds the second is not in harmony with the 
Pauline teaching, or with the accepted practice of the West. 
In the time of the patriarch Theodotus 11. (1151-1153 A.D.) 
Basilicus Bicinator, after his baptism, demanded a divorce, on 
the ground that in spite of his endeavours his wife declined to 
follow him in his conversion to Christianity. The patriarch 
decreed the divorce accordingly. 

The legislation of Justinian does not deal with the divorce 
and remarriage of converts. The practice of the Church 
appears to be chiefly based on the 72nd Canon of the Council 


in Trullo. (See chapter VIII.)! 


A. 7. The reception by either partner of his or her own child 
from the baptismal font (ἡ ἀναδοχὴ τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἁγίου 
βαπτίσματος). 

This ground of divorce, of all perhaps the most repugnant 
to the mind of the Divine Founder of marriage, springs from 
the fiction of spiritual relationship. Spiritual relationship, as 
will be noticed in chapter X., succeeded in great part to the 
position occupied under the Roman law by relationship of 
adoption, and the principle of respectus parentelae, which barred 
marriage between persons related by adoption, found its 
analogue in the respect of the god-child for the god-parent. 
That a marriage between a god-father and his god-daughter, or 


1 Zhishman, p. 754. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 359 


between a god-mother and her god-son, might not unreasonably 
be discountenanced by ecclesiastical law may well be conceded. 
The relationship of protection and of training which is implied 
may be best free from the suggestion of other possibilities. 
But to maintain that this relationship bars marriage essentially, 
and still more to affirm that those whom Gop has joined 
together are to be put asunder if either should assume the 
office of god-parent to their child, on the ground of an inces- 
tuous relationship now established between them, will seem to 
the mind of the Anglican churchman to be the very perversity 
of impiety. It stands, however, as one of the recognised 
grounds of divorce in the Eastern Churches, and it would be of 
little service to comment farther upon it. 

This ground of divorce apparently dates from the Council 7 
Trullo, the 53rd Canon of which deals with it. It does not 
require much discernment to see that this ground of divorce 
would be willingly brought into play by persons who were tired 
of their union, and accordingly we find that the Emperors 
Leo IV. and Constantine VI. issued a Novel between 776 and 
780 A.D., in which, while spiritual relationship is fully reecg- 
nised as a ground of divorce, the collusion of the partners to 
effect it is visited with severe penalties.! 


B. 1. Jmpotence. 


Physical incapacity, which in the West is everywhere recog- 
nised as a ground for the declaration of the nullity of a 
marriage, is in the East, at least in the case of the man, a 
ground of divorce. Justinian’s 22nd Novel lays down 
that, as the period of two years before thought sufficient for 
the establishment of the fact has proved in some cases to be 
insufficient, the duration of the incapacity must extend to 
three years before the divorce is accorded. This rule remains 
in force. The incapacity must have lasted for three years from 
the time of the solemnization of the marriage. If it is only 
supervenient incapacity it is no ground of divorce. Barren- 
ness in the case of the woman is no ground of divorce. 
Physical incapacity to bear children is a ground for the 





1 Zhishman, p. 757. 


360 HOLY MATRIMONY 


annulment of a betrothal; but, according to Zhishman, even 
physical incapacity for the sexual union is in the case of 
the woman not regarded as a ground of divorce when the 
marriage has once been solemnized.! 


ΒΡ. 2. Absence without tidings (ἡ ἀποδημία ἀφανής), captivity 
and slavery (ἡ αἰχμαλωσία, ἡ δουλεία). 


Absence without tidings, as also captivity and slavery, have 
been retained by the Eastern Churches in their lists of admitted 
grounds of divorce; but it is to the honour of those Churches 
that in this matter they have asserted the instincts of Christian 
discipline in opposition to the concessions of the secular law. 
By the legislation of Justinian, if a man had been absent from 
his wife in a distant land for a long period, and no tidings of 
him had been received, the wife was permitted to contract a 
fresh marriage; and even in the event of the husband’s return 
she was not required to surrender the second marriage. The 
regulations in the case of a soldier absent on service differed 
somewhat from those affecting other persons. 

The Church, however, while admitting that a person whose 
partner has been so long absent as to afford presumption of 
death may proceed to contract a new marriage, rules that if the 
missing partner return he may claim his wife again. In other 
words, the second union is only admitted on presumption of 
death, and subject to correction by fact. There is therefore in 
no true sense a divorce. The Church bases mainly on 8. Basil’s 
canon, which was noticed in the last section, and on the 93rd 
canon of the Council ix Trullo. The evident want of harmony 
between these canons and the provisions of the secular law 
has been a considerable difficulty to Eastern canonists, who 
consider themselves as bound both by the secular and by the 
ecclesiastical legislation; and they have sometimes been at 
pains to show that there is no essential contradiction. The 
contradiction is, however, complete in the most essential 
point of all. The secular law holds that the bond may be severed 
without regard to future possibilities; the Church affirms that 





1 Zhishman, p. 759. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 361 


the bond stands, notwithstanding any new union, if the former 
partner lives. 

The husband may, however, if he see fit, avail himself upon 
his return of the provision which admits divorce and remarriage 
in the case of adultery.! 

The adinission of divorce by the old Roman legislation in 
the cases of captivity and slavery was made on an entirely 
different ground from that of absence without tidings. Before 
the Roman law there could be no equality of condition between 
a freeman and a slave; and as the difference of condition was 
a bar to marriage, so when it supervened after marriage it was 
held not only to be an adequate ground of divorce, but to void 
the marriage ipso facto. The 22nd Novel of Justinian is an 
advance in the Christian direction, when it requires the lapse 
of five years before divorce with the right of remarriage is 
admitted; and the 33rd Novel of Leo the Philosopher brings 
the secular law entirely into harmony with Christian discipline, 
requiring the partner left behind to abstain from any fresh 
union during the whole continuance of the captivity. 


B. 3. Insanity (ἡ μανία). 


Insanity is now admitted by the Eastern Churches as a 
eround of divorce. The remarkable reply of 8. Timothy of 
Alexandria (385 A.D.), when questioned on this subject, has 
been already noticed.2 While shrinking from a peremptory 
veto he says that remarriage even in such a case is not free 
from the character of adultery. Insanity is not one of the 
grounds of divorcee specified in the 117th Novel of Justinian. 
By the 111th Novel of Leo the Philosopher (ec. 900 A.D.) 1t was 
enacted that when a man’s wife was the victim of mania, the 
man might after three years of waiting obtain a divorce with 
right of remarriage. The 112th Novel of the same emperor 
extended the right of divorce to the wife of an insane husband. 
The legislation of Leo is repeated by the Emperor Nicephorus 
Botaniates (1078-1081 a.p.). The later canonists have fully 
accepted this legislation.* 


1 Zhishman, p. 762. 2” Ibid. p. 767. % P. 310. * Zhishman, p. 769. 


262 HOLY MATRIMONY 


B. 4. Leprosy (ἡ λώβη). 

In the Eclogue of Leo III. the Isaurian (740 A.D.) leprosy is 
recognised as a ground of divorce. Apparently this is the only 
instance of legislation on this head. 


B. 5. The undertaking of monastic obligations (τὸ διαζύγιον 
διὰ σωφροσύνην καὶ ἄσκησιν). 

The Eastern Churches take the ground that the religious life 
is a higher state than the married life, and that the married 
life may be rightly severed to make place for it. This ground 
of divorce was recognised in the legislation of Justinian, and 
has been since maintained. The divorce is complete, carrying 
with it the right of remarriage for the partner left in the 
world. 


B. Ὁ. Episconal Consecration (ἡ χειροτονία τοῦ ἐπισκόπου). 

In the Eastern Churches a bishop is not permitted to be 
married. If therefore a marrie” priest is appointed a bishop, it 
is required as a condition of his consecration that his wife shall 
consent to a divorce, and that she shall retire to a convent. 
The divorce in this case, however, only amounts to a separation 
of hfe, as the remarriage of the wife is not allowed. Episcopal 
consecration 1s not recognised by the legislation of Justinian 
as a ground of divorce. The 48th Canon of the Council 7 
Trullo requires the consent of the wife to the separation, and 
rules the inadmissibility of her remarriage. These regulations 
have been maintained. 


D. The West after Justinian. 


AUTHORITIES, 
S. GREGORY THE GREAT. 
Epistolarum, lib. x1. 45. Ad Theoetistam Patriciam.' 

Si enim dicunt religionis causa conjugia debere dissolvi, sciendum 
est quia etsi hoc lex humana concessit, divina Jex tamen prohibuit. 
Per se enim Veritas dicit: Quae Deus conjunxit, homo non separet. 
Quae etiam ait; non licet dimittere uxorem, excepta causa fornica- 


1 Zhishman, p. 772. εἰ 70 en Yan Wy 6 
S ΠΧ, Ded as 4 Migne’s Ed, tom. iii. p. 1161. 


a6 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 369 


tionis. Quis ergo huic coelesti legislatori contradicat ? Scimus quia 
scriptum est: Erunt duo in carne una. Si ergo vir et uxor una caro 
sunt, et religionis causa vir dimittit uxorem, vel mulier virum in hoc 
mundo remanentem, vel etiam fortasse ad illicita migrantem, quae 
est ista conversio, in qua una eademque caro et ex parte transit ad 
continentiam, et ex parte remanet in pollutione ? 


Lib. xi. 50. Ad Adrianum Notarium.+ 


Agathosa latrix praesentium questa est maritum suum contra 
voluntatem suam in monasterio Urbici abbatis esse conversum. Quod 
quia ad ejusdem abbatis culpam et invidiam non est dubium perti- 
nere, experientiae tuae praecipimus ut diligenti inquisitione discutiat, 
ne forte cum ejus voluntate conversus sit, vel ipsa se mutare pro- 
miserit. Et si hoc repererit, et illum in monasterio permanere 
provideat, et hanc, sicut promisit, mutare compellat. Si vero nihil 
- horum est, nec quoddam fornicationis crimen, propter quod viro licet 
relinquere uxorem, praedictam mulierem commisisse cognoveris, ne 
illius conversio uxori relictae in saeculo fieri possit perditionis oceasio, 
volumus ut maritum suum illi, vel si jam tonsuratus est, reddere 
omni debeas excusatione cessante. Quia etsi mundana lex praecipit, 
conyersionis gratia, utrolibet invito, posse solvi conjugium, divina 
hoc tamen lex fieri non permittit. Nam excepta fornicationis causa, 
vir uxorem dimittere nulla ratione conceditur, quia postquam copu- 
-latione conjugii vii atque mulieris unum corpus efficitur, non potest 
ex parte converti, et ex parte in saeculo remanere. 


Grecory II. 
Capitulare Gregorit Papae II, (Datum Martiniano Episcopo, Georgio 
presbytero, &c., in Bavariam ablegatis, 715 a.p. or 716 a.p.), ο. 6.7 


Et non licere* in invicem fraudare, nisi ex consensu ad tempus ut 
vacent orationi, dicente de hoc ipso apostolo: Alligatus es uxort ; 
noli quaerere solutionem.: id est, superstite conjuge, ad alteram 
feminae concupitam‘ non velle transire, quia eodem doctore gentium 
adstruente: Qud fornicatur, in corpus suum peccat, hoc est, in uxore 
propria cum qua unum corpus est, cui fraudando per amplexus 
illicitos semetipsum sub peccati reatu objurgat. 

1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 1169. 2 Mansi, tom. xii. p. 259, 
3 lege liceat. 4 lege alterius feminae concubttum. 


364 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Gregorius II. Papa ad varias Bonifatit consultationes rescribit. 
(726 a.p., Nov. 22.) 


Nam quod posuisti, quodsi mulier infirmitate correpta non valuerit 
viri debitum reddere, quid ejus faciat jugalis; bonum esset, si sic 
permaneret, ut abstinentiae vacaret. Sed quia hoc magnorum est, 
1116, qui se non poterit continere, nubat magis. Non tamen subsidii 
opem subtrahat ab illa, cui infirmitas praepedit et non detestabilis 
culpa excludit. | 


ZACHARIAS, 747 A.D.? 


Zachariae Papae Epistola VIL. ad Pipinum Majorem Domus itemque 
ad episcopos, abbates et proceres Francorum. Respondet de 
diversis capitulis a Pipino per Ardobanium missis, A.D. 747. 


ὁ. 7. De laico pellente suam conjugem ex canone sanctorum apos- 
tolorum, capitulo 48, Si quis laicus uxorem propriam pellens, 
alteram vel ab alio dimissam duxerit, communione privetur. 

ce. 12. De his qui uxores aut viros dimittunt, ut sic maneant, ex 
concilio suprascripto Africano, capitulo 69 ita continetur: Placuit ut 
secundum evangelicam et apostolicam disciplinam, neque dimissus ab 
uxore, neque dimissa a marito, alteri conjungantur ; sed ita maneant, 
aut sibi invicem reconcilientur: Quod si contempserint, ad poeniten- 
tiam redigantur, 


CouNCIL OF FRIULI. 


(Concilium Forojuliense, 791 a.p.)3 
Canon 10. 


Item placuit ut, resoluto fornicationis caussa jugali vinculo, non 
liceat viro, quamdiu adultera vivit, aliam uxorem ducere, licet sit 
illa adultera; sed nec adulterae, quae poenas gravissimas vel poeni- 
tentiae tormentum luere debet, alium accipere virum, nec vivente, 
nec mortuo, quem non erubuit defraudare, marito. Nam etsi legatur 
in sacris evangelicis paginis, sola fornicationis caussa dixisse Domi- 
num, dimittere virum uxorem suam: non tamen legitur concessisse 
aliam, vivente 1118, in conjugio sibi sociare; prohibuisse quidem 
modis omnibus non ambigitur. Ait enim: Quicwmque dimiserit 
uxorem suam, nist ob fornicationem, et aliam duxerit, moechatur .: et 
qui dimissam duxerit, moechatur, Qua de re ita diffinire prospexi- 





1 Jaffe, Monumenta Moguntina, Berolini, 1866, p. 89. 
2 Mansi, tom. xii. pp. 330 sqq. 
Lbi’, tom, xiii. p. 849, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 365 


mus, ut juxta ejusdem Domini mellifluam vocem, nemo haec 
interdicta violator inculcare praesumat. Sed -quoniam in medio 
ambiguus interponitur sermo, id est, ist ob fornicationem ; quaeri 
nimirum potest, utrum ad solam licentiam dimittendi uxorem, guz 
dimisertt uxorem nisi ob fornicationem, an etiam ad utrumque dictum 
refertur, hoc est, ad aliam, vivente illa, accipiendam, quasi dixerit : 
Qui dimiserit uxorem suam, et aliam, nisi ob fornicationem, duxerit, 
moechatur. Et idcirco peritissimi viri beati Hieronymi libellum 
commentariorum recenseri nobis studiose mandavimus, anxie utique 
cognoscere festinantes, qualiter idem famosissimus doctor haec sacrata 
dominica verba, juxta capacioris ingenil sul subtilitatem, sensisse 
monstraretur, Cujus nimirum sensum sagaciter explorantes, In 
promptu nihilo minus patuit, ad solam dimittendi uxorem lcentiam 
pertinere. Nam cum more suo vir sanctus hujus capituli summatim 
seriem exponendam transcurreret, inter caetera et post pauca sic ait: 
Et quia poterat (inquit) accidere, ut aliquis calumniam faceret 
innocenti, et ob secundam copulam nuptiarum veteri crimen impin- 
geret, sic priorem dimittere jubetur uxorem, ut secundam, prima 
vivente, non habeat. Non enim debet imitari malum adulterae 
uxoris, et si illa duo, immo unam carnem, per scissuras fornicationum 
divisit in tres, dividat in quatuor. Unde patenter datur intelligi: 
quamdiu vivit adultera, non licet viro, nec potest impune secundas 


contrahere nuptias, 
CounciIL oF Rome. 


(Synodus Romana, 826 a.p.)! 
Canon 36. 


Nulli liceat excepta caussa fornicationis adhibitam uxorem relin- 
quere, et deinde aliam copulare: alioquin transgressorem priori 
convenit sociari conjugio. Sin autem vir et uxor divertere pro sola 
religiosa inter se consenserint vita, nullatenus sine conscientia episcopi 
fiat, ut ab eo singulariter proviso constituantur loco. Nam uxore 
nolente, aut altero eorum, etiam pro tali re matrimonium non 
solvatur. 

Councit oF ANGERS, 


(Concilium Andegavense, 453 a.p.)* 
Canon 6. 
Hi quoque qui alienis uxoribus, superstitibus ipsarum maritis, 


nomine conjugii abutuntur, a communione habeantur extranei. 


1 Mansi, tom, xiv. p 1009. 2 Tbid, tom, vii. p. 901, 


566 HOLY MATRIMONY 


CouNCIL OF VANNES. 
(Concilium Veneticum, circa 465 a.p.)} 
Canon 2. 
Eos quoque qui relictis uxoribus suis, sicut In evangelio dicitur, 
excepta causa fornicationis, sine adulterii probatione alias duxerint, 


statuimus a communione similiter arcendos: ne per indulgentiam 
nostram praetermissa peccata alios ad licentiam erroris Invitent. 


CouNcIL oF AGDE. 
(Concilium Agathense, 506 a.p.)? 
Canon 25. 


Hi vero saeculares, qui conjugale consortium culpa graviore 
dimittunt vel etiam dimiserunt, et nullas causas discidii probabiliter 
proponentes, propterea sua matrimonia dimittunt, ut aut illicita, aut 
aliena praesumant; si antequam apud episcopos comprovinciales 
discidii causas dixerint, et prius wxores, quam judicio damnentur, 
abjecerint ; a communione ecclesiae, et sancto populi coetu, pro eo 
quod fidem et conjugia maculant, excludantur. 


SECOND COUNCIL OF ORLEANS. 
(Concilium Aurelianense II., 533 a.p.)3 
Canon 11. 


Contracta matrimonia accedente infirmitate nulla voluntatis 
contrarietate solvantur. Quod si qui ex conjugibus fecerint, noverint 
se communione privandos. 


CouNcIL OF NANTES. 
(Concilium Nammnetense, ‘prob. 658 a.p.”)4 
Canon 12. 


Si cujus uxor adulterium perpetravit, et hoc a viro deprehensum 
fuerit et publicatum, dimittat uxorem, si voluerit, propter fornica- 
tionem : illa vero septem annis publice poeniteat. Vir vero ejus illa 
vivente nullatenus aliam accipiat. Quod si voluerit adulteram sibi 
reconciliare, licentiam habeat: ita tamen, ut pariter cum 1118 
poenitentiam agat, et exacta poenitentia, post septem annos ad 
communionem uterque accedat. Similis forma et in muliere 
servabitur, si eam vir ejus adulteravit. 





1 Mansi, tom vii. p. 953, 2 Ibid. tom. viii. p. 329. 
3 bid, tom. viii. p. 837. 4 Ibid. tom, xviii. p. 169. 


Ὃ 
OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 367 


TWELFTH CouNcIL oF TOLEDO. 
(Concilium Toletanum XII, 681 a.p.)! 


Praeceptum domini est, ut excepta causa fornicdtionis, uxor a viro 
dimitti non debeat. Et ideo quicumque citra culpam criminis 
praedicti, uxorem suam quacumque occasione reliquerit, quia quos 
Deus jungit, ille separare disposuit, tamdiu ab ecclesiastica com- 
municatione privatus, et a coetu omnium Christianorum maneat 
alienus, quamdiu, et ad societatem relictae conjugis redeat, et partem 
sui corporis honesta lege conjugii sinceriter amplectatur et foveat. 
Hi tamen, qui jam admoniti a sacerdote semel et bis terque ut 
corrigantur, ad tori sui conjugii noluerunt redire consortium, ipsi se 
suis meritis, et a palatinae dignitatis officio separabunt, et insuper 
generosae dignitatis testimonium, quamdin in culpa fuerint, amissuri 
sunt; quia carnem suam discidii jugulo tradiderunt. 


CounciIL oF Sorssons (744 A.D.). 
(Pippini Principis Capitulare Suessionense, a. 744.)? 
Canon 9. 


Similiter constituemus, ut nullus laicus homo Deo sacrata femina 
ad mulierem non habeat, nec suam parentem; nec marito viventem 
sua mulier alius non accipiat, nec mulier vivente suo viro alium 
accipiat, quia maritus muliere sua non debet dimittere excepto causa 
fornicationis deprehensa. 


CounciL OF VERBERIES. 
(Pippini Regis Capitulare Vermeriense, a. 753.)* 
Canon 2. 


Si aliquis cum filiastra sua manet, nec matrem nec filiam ipsius 
potest habere, nee ille nec illa aliis se poterunt conjungere ullo 
unquam tempore. Attamen uxor ejus, si ita voluerif, si se continere 
non potest, si postea quam cognovit quod cum filia sua vir ejus fuit 
in adulterio, carnale commercium cum eo non habet, nisi voluntate 
se abstinet, potest alio nubere. 








1 Mansi, tom. xi. p. 1034, 
2 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, tom, 1, p. 21, 
3 Ibid. tom. i. p. 22. 


368 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canon 5. 


Si qua mulier mortem viri sui cum aliis hominibus consiliavit, et 
ipse vir ipsius hominem se defendendo occiderit, et hoe probare 
potest, ille vir potest ipsam uxorem dimittere, et si voluerit, aliam 
accipiat. [Ipsa! autem insidiatrix, poenitentia subacta, absque spe 
conjugii maneat. | 


Canon 9. 


Si quis necessitate inevitabili cogente. in alium ducatum seu pro- 
vinciam fugerit, aut seniorem suum, cui fidem mentiri non poterit, 
secutus fuerit; et uxor eius, cum valet et potest, amore parentum 
aut rebus suis, eum sequi noluerit, ipsa omni tempore, quamdiu vir 
ejus, quem secuta non fuit, vivet, semper innupta permaneat. Nam 
ille vir ejus, qui necessitate cogente in alium locum fugit [sit nun- 
quam in suam patriam se reversurum sperat], si se abstinere non 
potest, alam uxorem cum poenitentia potest accipere. 


Canon 17. 


Si qua mulier se reclamaverit, quod vir suus nunquam cum ea 
mansisset, exeant inde ad crucem; et si verum fuerit, separentur, et 
illa faciat quod vult. 


Canon 21. 


@ui uxorem suam dimiserit velare, aliam non accipiat. 


CounciL oF CoMPIEGNE. 
(Pippini Regis Capitulare Compendiense, 757 a.p.)° 
Canon 9. 


Homo Francus accepit beneficium de seniore suo, et duxit secum 
suum vassallum, et postea fuit 101 mortuus ipse senior, et dimisit 10] 
ipsum vasallum ; et post hoc accepit alius homo ipsum beneficium, et 
pro hoc ut melius potuisset habere illum vassallum, dedit ei mulierem 
de ipso beneficio, et habuit ipsam aliquo tempore; et dimissa illa, 
reversus est ad parentes senioris sui mortui, et accepit ibi uxorem, et 
modo habet eam. Diffinitum est, quod illam quam postea accepit, 
ipsam. habeat. 





1 Haec desunt in 1, 2. 
> Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, tom, i. 27. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 369 


Canon 10. 


Si quis, uxore accepta, invenit eam a fratre suo contaminatam, 
ipsam dimittens accepit aliam, ipsamque contaminatam invenit, uxor 
illius legittima est, propterea quia nec ipse virgo fuit illo tempore. 
Quod si tertiam postea acceperit, revertat ad medianam; et ipsa 
posterior potestatem habeat alio viro se conjungere, 


Canon 11. 


Si quis homo habet mulierem legittimam, et frater ejus adulteravit 
cum ea, ille frater vel illa femina qui adulterinm perpetraverunt, 
interim quo vivunt numquam habeant conjugium. 1116 cujus uxor 
fuit, si vult, potestatem habet accipere aliam. 


Canon 15. 


Si quis filiastrum aut filiastram ante episcopum ad confirmationem 
tenuerit, separetur ab uxore sua, et alteram non accipiat. Similiter 
et femina alterum non accipiat. [Georgius consensit, | 


Canon 16. 


Si quis vir mulierem suam dimiserit, et dederit commeatum pro 
religionis causa infra monasterium Deo servire, aut foras monasterium 
dederit licentiam velare, sicut diximus, propter Deum, vir illius 
accipiat mulierem legittimam. Similiter et mulier faciat. [Georgius 
consensit. | 


Canon 17. 


Si quis cum matre et filia in adulterio mansit, nesciente matre quod 
cum filia sua mansisset, similiter et filia nescivit quod cum matre sua 
esset, postea ille vir si acceperit mulierem, dimittat, usque in diem 
mortis suae non habeat uxorem, et illa muler quam reliquerit, 
accipiat virum ; et illa mater et filia, cum quibus in adulterio mansit, 
ambabus nescientibus quod cum patre et filia mansisset, habeant 
viros. Nam si in notitiam illarum venerit hoc scelus, dimittant 
maritos, et agant poenitentiam, et illorum mariti posteriores accipiant 
mulieres. 


Canon 19. 


Si vir leprosus mulierem habeat sanam, si vult ei donare com- 
meatum ut accipiat virum, ipsa femina, si vult, accipiat. Similiter 
et vir. 

2B 


70 HOLY MATRIMONY 


OS 


Canon 20. 

Si quis vir accepit mulierem, et habuit ipsam aliquo tempore, et 
ipsa femina dicit quod non mansisset cum ea, et ille vir dicit quod sic 
fecit, in veritate viri consistat, quia caput est mulieris. De muliere 
quae dicit, quod vir suus ei commercium maritale non reddidit, 


Georgius consensit. 
Canon 21. 


Si qui propter faidam fugiunt in aliam patriam, et dimittunt 
uxores suas, nec illi viri nec illae feminae accipiant conjugium 
[| Georgius consensit."] 


Synop oF AACHEN (789 A.D.). 
(Karoli Magni Capitularia. Capitulare ecclesiasticum, a. 789.)? 
Canon 43. Omnibus. 

Item in eodem (concilio Africano),* ut nec uxor a viro dimissa 
alium accipiat virum, vivente viro suo, nec vir aliam accipiat vivente 
uxori priore. ᾿ 

SrxtH ΟΟΥΧΟΙΙ, oF Paris. 
(Concilium Parisiense VI., 829 a.p.)4 
Lib. 111: cap. 2. 

Et quod nisi caussa fornicationis, ut Dominus ait, non sit uxor 
dimittenda, sed potius sustinenda. Et quod hi, qui caussa fornica- 
tionis dimissis uxoribus suis alias ducunt, Domini sententia adulteri 


esse notentur. 
Synop oF Worms (829 a.D.). 


(Hludowici et Hlotharii Capitularia. Constitutiones Wormatienses. )° 
De his quae populo adnuntianda sunt. (Repeats verbatim from 
the 6th Council of Paris.) 


Hriotuari 1. Excerpta Canonum.® 
Concilii mense Novembri anni 826 ab Eugenio papa Romae cele- 
brati canones 36, 37, 19, 38 et 33 in codicibus legum Langobardorum 
scilicet Ambrosiano, Florentino, Londinensi, Vindobonensi, Veronensi 
et Estensi inter Hlotharii leges referuntur. 
Nulli liceat excepta causa fornicationis, &c. (Repeats c. 36 of the 
Synodus Romana.) 





1 [In diluculo, cod. 

2 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legum, tom, i. p. 61. 

3 Comp. Afr. Can. 69. * Mansi, tom. xiv. p. 596. 
5 Monwinenta Germaniae Historica. Legum, tom. i. p. 345. 

OL bids TOMS eo ies 


‘a Tek bee δι». ὦ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE or. 


TuirpD Councit oF AACHEN. 
(Concilium Aquisgranense IIT., 862 a.p.)! 


In caussa Theutbergae, uxoris Lotharii regis, in quo permissum est 

Lothario, ut aliud conjugium iniret. 
Cap. 10. 

De cetero his atque hujusmodi canonicis sanctionibus, et sancti 
patris Ambrosi oraculis liquido perspectis, credimus non illam fuisse 
iloneam, aut legitimam conjugem, neque a Deo praeparatam esse 
uxorem quae publica ut dictum est confessione incestuoso fornicationis 
crimine denotata probatur. Quocirca glorioso principi nostro, pro 
sua in Divino cultu devotissima affectione, atque victorlosissima 
regni tuitione, cui non solum nos, verumetiam canonica auctoritas 
incestuosum conjugium interdicit, legitimum atque idoneum con- 
jugium a Deo illi concessum non denegamus, juxta indulgentiam 
dicentis apostoh ; Melzus est nubere quam ur. 


Councit or BourGEs. 
(Concilium Bituricense, 1031 a.p.)* 
Canon 16. 
Ut qui uxorem sine culpa fornicationis dimiserit, alleram alla 
vivente non ducat. 


Ut 111 qui uxores legitimas sine culpa fornicationis dimittunt, alias 
non accipiant illis viventibus, nec uxores viros, sed sibimet recon- 
cilientur. 

Councit oF RuHEIMs. 


(Concilium Remense, 1049 a.p.)® 
Canon 12 


Ne quis legitima uxore derelicta aliam duceret. 


Councit or Tours. 
(Concilium Turonense, 1060 a.p.)# 


Canon 9. 

(Juicumque consanguineam suam, aut quam consanguineus suus 
prius cognoverat, aut cujus consanguineam carnaliter in conjugium 
accepit, vel deinceps acceperit; vel postquam cognovit, non statim 
dimisit, aut cognoscens non dimiserit ; aut qui uxorem alterius rapuit, 
seu rapuerit ; vel qui suam uxorem sine judicio episcopali dimittens, 





1 Mansi, tom. xv. p. 613. 2 Ibid. tom. xix. p. 505. 
3 Ibid, p. 742. 4 Ibid. p. 928. 
2B 2 


΄ 


Ὁ HOLY MATRIMONY 


aliam duxit, vel duxerit: donec se fructuose tradat poenitentiae, a 
corpore et sanguine domini nostri Jesu, et a liminibus ecclesiae se 
exclusum, et alienatum, et omnimodis sicut putridum membrum a 
sano corpore praecisum gladio spiritus, quod est verbum Dei, agnoscat. 


Benepictus Levitra. 
(Quoted by Freisen, p. 793.) 
ibe Liao, 


Ut vivente viro vel uxore nemo eorum alteri conjugio copuletur. 


CUTTS: 


Et si fornicata fuerit et vir ejus voluerit, dimittenda, sed illa 
vivente altera non ducenda, quia adulteri regnum Dei non posside- 
bunt et poenitentia illi accipienda. 


Τὺ 


Et ut causa fornicationis non sit uxor secundum Domini sententiam 
dimittenda sed potius sustinenda. Et quod hi, qui causa fornicationis 
dimissis uxoribus suis alias ducunt, Domini sententia adulteri esse 
notantur. 

Psrupo-Isrpors.! 


(Ps-) Evaristus urbis Romae episcopus. Ommibus per ASgyptum 
domino conglutinatis fratribus In domino salutem. 
Cap. iv. 

Et sicut vir non debet neglegere uxorem suam, sed diligere et 
caste custodire et amare atque prudenter regere, sic episcopus debet 
ecclesiam suam, quia illut fit carnaliter, istut spiritaliter ; et sicut vir 
non debet adulterare, ita nec episcopus ecclesiam suam, id est, ut 
illam dimittat ad quam sacratus est, absque inevitabili necessitate 
aut apostolica vel regulari mutatione, et alteri ambitus causa con- 
jungat. Ut uxor ὙΠῸ suo reconciliet, et sicut uxori non licet 
dimittere virum suum, ut alteri se vivente eo matrimonio sotiet aut 
eum adulteret hceet fornicatus sit vir ejus, sed juxta apostolum aut 
viro suo debet reconciliari aut manere innupta: ita ecclesia non licet 
dimittere aut ab ea se segregare episcopum suum, ut alterum vivente 
eo accipiat, sed aut ipsum habeat aut innupta maneat, id est, ne 
alterum episcopum vivente suo accipiat, vel fornicationis aut adulteri 
crimen incurrat. ; 





1 Ed. Hinschius, p. 90. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE ofo 


GRATIAN’S DrorETUM (CONCORDANTIA DISCORDANTIUM CANONUM).! 
ΟΥ̓ ΟΣ 

c. 1. Vineulum conjugii fornicatione dissolvi non potest. 

c, 2. Nulla ratione dissolvitur conjugium quod semel initum 
probatur. 

6. 3. Sive vir ab uxore, sive uxor a viro causa fornicationis 
discesserit, alteri adhaerere prohibetur. 

c. 6. Moechatur qui a viro dimissam ducere praesumit. 

c. 7. Adultera probatur, quae vivente marito alteri nubit. 


Dictum to ο. 16. 
His auctoritatibus evidentissime monstratur, quod.quicunque causa 
fornicationis uxorem suam dimiserit, illa vivente aliam ducere non 
poterit, et, si duxerit, reus adulterii est. 


In the western half of what had once been the undivided 
toman Empire the history of the laws of marriage ran an sei. 
altogether different course from that which it followed in the secular 
east. In the east the Empire was all-dominant, the Church ual 
humbly submissive. In Italy, and ultimately throughout the eee 
West, it was the Chureh which tended to be dominant in all of the 
matters having ecclesiastical relations, while the various and rena 
fragmentary secular dynasties which succeeded one another 
in what have been known as the “dark ages” found themselves, 
sooner or later, forced in such matters to accept the teaching 
and submit to the sway of the Church. Long before the 
legislation of Justinian had beeun to leaven the old Roman 
law at Constantinople with directly Christian influences, many 
of the provinces of the West had been torn away from the 
Empire by the inroads of barbarian invaders. These invaders, 
when settled in the conquered provinces, had to face the fact 
of the system of law under which their new subjects lived, 
and the principle which they appear to have commonly adopted 
is the principle which, in recent times, the British Government 
has adopted in India, that is to say, the recognition of personal 
law.2 Just asin India at the present time the British Govern- 
ment permits the Hindu to live under the protection of the 





1 Friedberg, Corpus juris canonici, 1879-1881. Quoted by Freisen, pp. 802 sq. 
2 Ortolan, History of Roman Law, para, 529; Eng. tr. p. 432, 


The 
subjects 
of the 
Germart 
king's 
were 
tinder per= 
sonal law. 


The codes 
of the 
Roman 
subjects 
of the 
German 
kings. 


374 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Hindu law, and the Mussulman under the law of the Koran— 
modified only so far as is rendered necessary by the relations 
of these sections of the community to one another and to the 
whole empire—so the German kings adopted the principle of 
judging every man according to the laws of the race to which 
he belonged. In pursuance of this policy they found it neces- 
sary to promulgate, besides their own Teutonic laws, certain 
codes of Roman law, which they were prepared to recognise 
as the law of all Romans within their dominions. There are 
three such Roman Codes promulgated by German kings: 

1. The Lew Romana Visigothorum, or Breviarium Alaricr 
(decreed at Aire, in Gascony, 506 A.D.). 

2. The Lex Romana Burgundionum (517 A.D.) 

3. The Hdictum Theodorict (according to Savigny, 500 a.D.), 
which was in force among the Ostrogoths in Italy. 

These various codes were intended at once to meet the 
difficulties which arose from the confused state into which the 
Roman law had fallen,! and to adapt that law, where necessary, 
to the new conditions of the Teutonic rule. The confusion of 
the Roman law itself was at this time very great. Ortolan 
says: “The plebiscita of ancient Rome, the senatus-consulta, 
the edicts of the preetors, the numerous books of the authorized 
jurists, the codes of Gregorian, of Hermogenian, of Theodosius, 
the constitutions of all the emperors who had come after 
him, texts accumulated, confused, and contradictory, formed 
altogether a real legislative chaos.” 

It was to such a condition of the law that in the east 
Justinian’s admirable legislation succeeded. The Code, the 
Digest, and the Institutes all appeared at Constantinople 
between A.D. 529 and A.D. 034. At first they had no authority 
in Italy, where, under barbarian rule, the Edict of Theodoric 
was the recognised code in force. But the reign of Justinian, 
besides being the era of legislative order, was the era of the 
reconquests of Belisarius and Narses; and in 4.p. 554, or only 
twenty years after the promulgation of the new Code in 


1 See the Commonitorium of the Visigothic Code, which speaks of the 
‘‘legum Romanarum et antiqui juris ἘΠῚ: itas,” 
3 foro! History of Roman Law, para, 535 ; ; Eng. trans. p. 441. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 318 


A.D. 534, 1t was possible by a pragmatic sanction to extend the The code 
operation of the Code to the courts of Italy. For three δὲ 
Y Justinian 


centuries from this time the Byzantine Empire was able to in the 
maintain a more or less precarious foothold in the Italian Ties i 
peninsula, but long before the last Greek soldier was finally 
driven across the Adriatic the power of the Justinianian legis- 
Jation in Italy had found a stronger basis in the support of 

the clergy than it was ever again to find in the secular 
authority of the East.1 Amid the chaos of many masters 

the forum externum of the bishop, which appears to have The forum 
existed from the first for penitentiary purposes, acquired or ee 
every day more of the character of a recognised and coercive P"°” 
jurisdiction—a tendency which was doubtless very largely 

due to the express recognition of such courts by the Code in 

the case of litigants who voluntarily submitted to them. 
Thus a Constitution of Arcadius and Honorius? allows the 
parties in civil suits to go before the bishop as arbitrator, and 

a Constitution of Honorius and Theodosius*® orders that the 
judgment of the bishop shall be binding on all those who 
have chosen him as judge, and that it shall have as much 
force as a judgment of the pretorian prefect, from whom 
there could be no appeal. An early and interesting case of 

this jurisdiction of the bishop has been already referred to 

in connexion with 8. Innocent I., who gave his decision, “ the 
Catholic Faith supporting” him, while referring at the same 

time to the corroborative force of the secular law. It does 

not indeed appear that in the administration of the Roman 

law the court of the bishop could ever claim coercive juris- 
diction in ordinary civil cases, over any except those who 
voluntarily submitted to it; but it is notwithstanding a fact 

that in Italy the court of the bishop, and especially the court 

of the Pope, came to be the most prominent of legal tribunals. 

The permission accorded to their jurisdiction was doubtless due 

in great measure to the consciousness of the civil legislators 


1 On the influence of the clergy compare Ortolan, History of Roman Law, 
sec, 121, paras. 600-603; and Allies, The Holy See and the Wandering of the 
Nations, pp. 256 sqq. 

= Code ἵν ἢ $ Ibid. 8. 


S. Gregory 
the Great. 


Divorce 
for the 
purpose of 
entering 
the 
monastic 
life not 
permitted, 


376 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that Christians, who wished to live in full communion with 
the Church, had to acknowledge stricter bonds than the 
civil law cared to impose; and we find, in fact, that the law 
administered by the ecclesiastical tribunals recognised a certain 
“Canon Law,’ as it afterwards came to be called, as well as, 
and in preference to, the civil legislation of the empire. These 
ecclesiastical tribunals may indeed be said to have conducted 
their administration consistently on two principles: 

(1) That the recognised Constitutions, Canons, and Usages 
of the Christian Church were to be counted as above all other 
law, and that wherever any secular legislation was contrary to 
the ecclesiastical, such secular legislation should be disregarded. 


(2) That, subject to this provision, the Civil Code of Justinian 
was to be loyally applied in the secular affairs of life.? 


The result of the application of these two principles in the 
matter of the laws of marriage was that the regulations of 
Justinian upon the subject were never the rule of the West. 
The churches of Italy, which were immediately connected with 
the Roman See, administered the Christian law, soon to be 
known as the Canon law of marriage; while the communities 
beyond the Alps, who were not freed from the secular juris- 
diction in marriage questions, were still under the provisions 
of the Roman Codes of the German Emperors, or under the 
old German and Frankish laws. The conflict between these 
secular systems and the Christian Church in the ultramontane 
territories will be presently noticed; but it will be convenient 
to examine first the traditions of Italy, and especially of the 
toman See. 

(.) Ltaly. 

S. Gregory the Great (bp. from A.D. 590 to A.D. 604), con- 
demning the laxity of the secular law in the matter of divorce, 
says that “it must be understood that, although human law 
has conceded this, yet the Divine law has forbidden it.”? The 
case he is considering is the case of a married person who 
should wish to take monastic vows, and leave his partner in 








1 Ortolan, History of Roman Law, paras, 601, 602. 
2 S. Gregory the Great, Hpist. lib. xi, 45, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE a 


the world. In a particular case of the same mistaken practice 
which had been submitted to him he expresses himself in a 
similar sense: “ Because although the secular (mundana) law 
provides that for the sake of monastic consecration (conversio) 
marriages may be dissolved, notwithstanding the unwillingness 
of one of the parties, yet the Divine law does not permit this 
to be done. For, the cause of fornication excepted, a man is 
permitted on no ground to put away his wife, because after 
that by the copulation of marriage there results one body of 
the man and of the woman, that body cannot be partly bound 
to monastic obligations and partly left im the world.” 1 

S. Gregory then understands that there is only one cause 
which permits putting away, and he is conscious that there is 
a grave difference between the secular law and the Christian 
law on the subject of divorce. He does not appear to touch 
the subject of remarriage after divorce for fornication. Pre- 
sumably he accepted the traditional attitude of the Roman 
Church. 

Gregory IT.,in the Instructions which he gave to the ambas- 
sadors whom he sent into Bavaria in A.D. 716, thus writes: 
“<Thou art bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed’; that 1s to 
say, while thy wife is alive desire not to pass over to concubitus 
with another woman.’? Gregory II. is, on the whole, at one 
with all his predecessors and successors in the Roman See; 
but a remarkable letter to S. Boniface in 726 A.D., the genuine- 
ness of which is above question, concedes remarriage in a 
particular case of separation. Where the wife, overcome by 
infirmity, (infirmitate correpta) can no longer admit conjugal 
intercourse, the husband may be permitted to marry again 
during her lifetime. This concession on the part of Gregory II. 
is perhaps the only instance in the whole long line of Roman 
pontiffs of a failure to maintain the primitive principle of the 
indissolubility of Christian marriage.? As such it was felt by 
Gratian to be an extraordinary difficulty when, in the twelfth 
century, he came to compile the celebrated Decretwm, which 
codified the Canon Law of Western Christendom, and is still 





1S. Gregory the Great, Hist. lib. xi. 45. 2 Gregory II., Capitulare. 
3 Gregorius 11. papa ad varias Bonifatit consultationes. 


Gregory II, 
Against 
div »rce 
with re- 
Marriage, 


but a 
remarkable 
exception, 
when the 
wife is 
“infirmi- 
tate 
correpta." 


Influence of 


Theodore. 


Zacharias. 


Re- 
marriage 


disallowed. 


378 : HOLY MATRIMONY 


the largest portion of the Corpus Juris Canonici. He remarks, 
“That passage of Gregory is found altogether opposed to the 
sacred canons, nay, even to the evangelical and apostolical 
doctrine,” ? and endeavouring to glose over it he remarks that 
it was only a temporary permission to the English. (It was 
Ὁ. Gregory 1. who had written to the English; the letter of 
Gregory II. had reference to the Germans.) 

The most probable explanation of a judgment which was 
not only at variance with the traditions of the Roman see, 
but also, as it would seem, with Gregory’s own instructions 
just noticed, is that he allowed himself here to be overborne 


by the authority of the great name of Theodore of Canterbury, 


whose Penitential appears to have been published in the early 
years of the eighth century. Theodore, as will be seen in the 
next section, permitted the various lax indulgences which were 
in vogue in the East, and also, contrary to Eastern practice, 
admitted divorce for supervenient infirmity. Gregory may not 
indeed have been prepared to accept all the marriage clauses of 
Theodore’s Penitential, but he may have been the more ready 
to accept this particular provision on the ground of an obvious 
though misleading analogy. It was shewn in a former chapter 
that in practice the Church has always admitted that where 
there was, αὖ initio, no copula, there was no completed marriage, 
Throughout Christendom it has been, and is still, the rule 
in such cases to decree nullity of marriage on application ; 
but in the case conceded by Gregory the bond of marriage 
subsisted by virtue of the completed union of the earler 
wedded life, and to sever it was to decree divorce and to 
surrender the principle of the indissolubility of Christian 
marriage. 

Pope Zacharias, writing to Pippin, Mayor of the Palace, in 
747 A.D.—at a time when arguments on the question of divorce 
were running high in the Frankish kingdom—quotes two 
ancient canons, first, the 48th Apostolical Canon, and next 
the 102nd Canon of the African Code. Both of these canons, 


1 Deeretunr,.c18, 10.382. ἢ 7. 
257 000.50. 24 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 379 


as shewn above, forbid remarriage after divorce. Pope 
Zacharias, therefore, endorses this prohibition.? 

The Council of Friuli, held in 791 a.p. under Paulinus of councit 
Aquileia, has a long and interesting canon on the subject. % Ft! 
“Tt was decreed that when the marriage bond is loosed because Σ 
of fornication the husband may not lawfully take another wife marriage 
so long as the adulteress lives, nor may she take another #ae"e* 
husband, whether he whom she hath shamelessly wronged 
be living or dead.” The canon proceeds to refer to 5. Matthew 
xix. 9 as a difficult passage, and states that the works of 5. Matt. 
S. Jerome have been diligently searched for his exposition of **% 
its meaning, with the result that “it became immediately 
evident that the clause relates solely to the permission to 
put away.’? 

A canon which was passed in the Council of Rome under eouncit 
Eugenius II., in a.p. 826, and confirmed in another Roman of Rome. 
Council under Leo IV., in a.p. 853, is of doubtful interpre- 
tation. “No man, except for the cause of fornication, may 
leave the wife who is joined to him, and then unite with 
another. In other cases it is expedient that the transgressor 


: 7 : ξ Canon of 
be united in his former wedlock.”? It has been generally douptfut 
held by later expositors that this canon is a clumsily-worded eva 


enactment, In which there was no intention to overthrow the 
traditional teaching of the Roman Church. Persons who had 
separated without the justification of unfaithfulness ought to 
come together again. If the justification existed they might 
remain apart; nor was remarriage permitted. The canon 
goes on to lay down that even for the object of entering the 
“religious life” mutual consent 1s a necessary condition of 
separation. It must be admitted that this canon, except for 
the grave improbability that an unnoticed pronouncement of 
the Roman Church should contradict the continuous tenour 
of its traditions, might well be read to sanction remarriage 
after divorce for fornication. 





1 Zacharie Pape Epistola vit. ad Pipinum Majorem Domus itemgque ad 
episcopos, abbates et proceres Francorum. 

2 Conctlium Forojuliense, 791 A.D. (Mansi, tom. xiii. p. 849). 

3 Synodus Romana, 826 A.D. (Mansi, tom. xiv. p. 1009.) 


In Italy 
the indis- 
solubility 
of 
marriage 
was 
maintained. 


Two 
systems of 
personal 
law. 


The 
Roman 
codes 
retained 
the faculty 
of divorce 
by consent. 


380 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Nicholas I., after the third Council of Aachen (862 A.D.) 
had disgraced itself by its cowardly concession of remarriage 
to Lothair on the ground of the adulterous incest of his wife, 
excommunicated all those who had taken part in the Council. 
He must be understood to reject remarriage after divorce for 
adultery. 

Summing up the traditions of the Roman Church for the 
second five centuries of Christianity, it may be said that they 
consistently maintained the early traditions of the indissolu- 
bility of Christian marriage with only one certainly discordant 
utterance; viz. the judgment of Gregory II. in the case of 
supervening infirmity. The peculiar position of the episcopal 
courts as authorized tribunals, in a condition of affairs where 
all secular authority was in a state of flux, had the effect of 
making the strict tradition of the Roman Church the only 
admitted law of marriage in the Italian peninsula. 


(11.) Zhe Churches beyond the Alps. 

For the proper understanding of the canons affecting 
marriage in the Churches beyond the Alps, it is necessary 
to recall the provisions of the secular law. As has been 
noticed, the Frankish and German monarchs ruled on the 
system of recognising the personal law of each individual 
subject. Consequently throughout the regions in which the 
power of the Western emperors in the so-called dark ages 
was most real and actual, we find the people lving under two 
main systems of law. ‘Those who accepted the Roman system 
were judged by the Roman codes of the German kings. The 
rest continued under the native German or Frankish systems, 
customary or other. 

By the Roman codes, which, it must be remembered, were 
not superseded in Western Europe by the legislation of 
Justinian, the facility of divorce by mutual consent remained. 
Thus in the Lee Romana Burgundionum it is enacted that 
“by the consent of both parties repudiwm may be given and 
marriage may be dissolved.”? The Lex Romana Visigothorum 





1 Mansi, tom. xv. p. 625, note. 
* Lex Romana Burgundionum, tit. 21, ο. 1, quoted by Freisen, Can. Eherecht, 
Delete 


= 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 881 


is not so explicit on this point, though nothing is said with 
a view to take away the existing license, while a formula of 
divorce has come down to us which was in use in the territory 
covered by this code, and which plainly recognises mutual 
consent as a sufficient ground, “inasmuch as between him 
and her, his wife, there reigns not charity according to Gop, 
but discord, and they have no desire of equal conversation, 
it has pleased both their wills that they should separate from 
conjugal association, which accordingly they have done.” 1 

In the case of a suit for divorce instituted by one party pivorce for 
without the consent of the other, the man might divorce his oe oe 
wife, as under the older Roman legislation, if she were (a) an older 

f : ‘ Roman 
adulteress, (Ὁ) a poisoner, or (6) a procuress; while the wife jecisiation. 
might divorce her husband if he were (a) a homicide, (0) a 
criminal (maleficus), or (c) a violator of tombs. The wife 
might not divorce her husband on the ground of his forni- 
cation with other women, or in the case of drunkenness or 
of other excess.2 If either party insisted on a divorce, 
though not able to allege what the law regarded as an 
adequate ground, the divorce does not seem to have been 
void, but it was attended by the infliction of penalties. 

Those subjects of the Western rulers who elected to live The 
under the old local systems of law appear to have had an Frankish 
equal facility in the matter of divorce. Thus the laws of the German 
Alemanni permitted separation without further ado where the aie 
parties desired it, prescribing a division of chattels. In the gquai 
law of the Visigoths, however, consensual divorce was re- @cites | 
stricted under Chindaswind (642-653 4.0.) to the case of 
both parties entering the religious life—a case in which the 
divorce was to be of service, not for the dissolution of the 
bond, but only for separation of life. This restriction is 
clearly the result of Christian teaching, 

Where the divorce was sought by one party only, the 
German system admitted certain specified grounds of divorce. 





1 Form. Syrmond, 19, quoted by Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 777. 

2 Haenel, Lea Romana Visigothorum, p. 94, quoted by Freisen, Can. Lherecht, 
ey Me 

3 Lex Alem. Pactus 111. 2, quoted by Freisen, Can. Eherecht, p. 779. 

4 Lea Visigoth, 111. 6, ὁ. 2, ibid. 


Conflict 
of the 
Church 
with the 
secu ar 
laws. 


Conditions 
more 
favourable. 


382 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Thus the Lex Visigothorum specifies the adultery of the wife.! 
In the Lex Burgundionum divorce was admitted, much after 
the model of the Roman codes, if the woman was an 
adulteress, a criminal (malejfica), or a violator of tombs.? 
With the Lombards the grounds of divorce were (1) adultery, 
(2) immodest behaviour with a third person, (5) attempts 
upon life. With the Bavarians and Allemanni wtewm was 
a ground of divorce, that is to say, some crime by which the 
honour of the wife was stained. Sometimes divorce took 
effect by the sole procedure of the husband, without ground 
alleged; but such divorce carried with it penalties. Generally 
speaking, the wife did not possess the right to divorce her 
husband except with his consent, even if he were guilty of 
adultery. By the law of the Burgundians a woman who 
deserted the husband to whom she had been lawfully married 
was punishable by death.* 

From this brief review of the secular laws of marriage in 
the more westerly portion of Europe it will be seen that the 
Christian Church had there much the same conflict to wage 
with the various secular systams as the Eastern Church had 
to carry on against the Roman civil law. The conflict has 
left its marks, and the canons of the local councils and other 
records will shew how in these Western countries, as in the 
East, the Church sometimes felt the pressure of present 
authority and custom to be too great for primitive practice 
and strict Church feeling. But the conditions of the conflict 
were more favourable to the Church in the West than they 
were proving in the East. On the one hand there was an 
independent authority in the see of Rome to which appeal 
could be made; on the other the civil jurisdiction lacked the 
unity and weight of the civil system of the East. The results 
were accordingly altogether different. In the East, as has 
been seen, the Church overcame the license of divorce by 
mutual consent, but practically gave way on nearly all other 





1 Lex Visig. 111. 6, ὁ. 2, quoted by Freisen, Ὁ. 779. 
2 Lex Burg. 34, 3, ibid. 

3 Lex Bajurv, viii. 14; Pact. Alem. ili. 8, ibid. 

4 Lex Burg. 34, 1, quoted by Freisen, p. 780. 


a 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 383 


points. In the West, while there are occasional yieldings 
during the period of conflict, the Church ultimately conquered 
all along the line. Yet it was not till the tenth and eleventh 
centuries that this victory can be said to have been finally won. 

For the most Western countries of Europe the era of some 
Justinian does not supply, as in the East, and even in Italy, hcheeices 
a natural halting-place. It will be convenient here to dis- before 
regard the division of time hitherto adopted, and, for the eee 
evidence of what may be called distinctively Frankish sige hs 
tradition, to go back behind Justinian. The Councils of 
Angers (453 A.D.), of Vannes (465 Α.}.), and of Agde (506 A.D.) 
will be better considered here than would have been the case 
if they had been treated together with the teaching of 
S. Jerome, 8. Augustine, 5S. Innocent [., and 8. Leo the Great. 

The Council of Angers, held in 453 A.D., on the occasion of Council of 
the consecration of Talasius as bishop, was able to take its 4™8¢ 
stand as a Christian council, to which the secular laws were 
only the laws of a community still predominantly non- 
Christian. Hence the canon on remarriage after divorce is 
the untroubled utterance of early Christian conviction. “They 
also who under the name of marriage abuse other men’s wives 
while the husbands are still living are to be held excluded from 
communion.” By the secular law such unions were open to 
any, and went by “the name of marriage”; but the Christian 
Church knew nothing of such marriages, and excommunicated 
the offenders. 

At Vannes in 465 A.D., or twelve years after the Council Council of 
of Angers, a council was held under the presidency of the τ 
metropolitan 5. Perpetuus of Tours, on the occasion of the 
consecration of 8. Padarn, the first British bishop of Brittany, 
who was appointed to the See of Vannes. All those who 
avail themselves of the secular law to divorce their wives and 
marry others are excluded from communion, with the sole 
exception of those who can prove the wife’s adultery. The 
Council of Vannes therefore does not reject from communion 
the innocent husband who has put away his wife for adultery 





1 Conciliwm Andegavense, 453 A.D. (Mansi, tom. vil. p. 901.) 


Council 
of Agde. 


384 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and afterwards married again; but the spirit of the canon is 
not to be found so much in the permitted exception as in the 
general condemnation. Evidently it was felt by the fathers 
that their action would seem harsh, and require to be justified, 
for they add, “Lest sins passed over by our indulgence invite 
others to the license of error.” It should be remembered that 
although the town and district of Vannes were probably more 
affected by British custom than by Frankish law, the bishops 
who formed the council, with the sole exception of 8. Padarn 
himself, were bishops of Frankish Sees. The council is there- 
fore doubtless dealing chiefly with the lax habits of Christians 
who availed themselves of the indulgence of the Frankish 
secular laws.! 

The Council of Agde in Narbonne, which was held in 506 a.p. 
“by the permission of our most glorious and magnificent lord 
king,” that is, Alaric, shows at the same time a condition of 
conflict with current laxity of usage as sanctioned by the 
secular law, and a tendency on the part of the Church to meet 
such laxity half-way by considerable concessions. “Those 
secular persons, who are dissolving or have actually dissolved 
their conjugal fellowship for (no) grave fault, and who allege 
no probable grounds of divorce on account of which they are 
dissolving their marriages; and do this that they may presume 
to unlawful or at least alien connexions: (be it resolved) that 
if such put away their wives before they have alleged the 
erounds of divorce in the presence of the comprovincial 
bishops, and before the wives have been judicially condemned, 
they are to be excluded from the communion of the Church, 
and from the holy assembly of the people, because they are 
staining both their faith and their marriage unions.” The 
license of the secular laws is thus in no wise to be upheld; 
but there are grounds which, if alleged and proved before the 
comprovincial bishops, would justify divorce, and evidently 
also remarriage. One such ground would be adultery, and it 
is possible that other grounds would have been entertained.” 

The next council to be noticed is that of Orleans, which was 





1 Conciliwm Veneticum, circa 465 A.D. (Mansi, tom, vii. p. 953.) 
2 Concilium Agathense, 506 A.D. (Mansi, tom. villi. p. 329.) 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 385 


held in 533 a.p. at the desire of Childebert and his royal Council of 
brothers. This council has a canon against divorce for super- Panne 
venient infirmity, apparently in the sense of insanity: 
“Contracted marriages. are not to be dissolved, if infirmity 
supervene, by reason of any contrariety of the will. If any 
married persons shall have done this, let them know that they 

are to be deprived of communion.”! This appears to be an 

echo of a provision which, doubtless under Christian influences, 

had found place in the secular system. The West-Gothic 
interpretation of the Lea Romana Visigothorum lays down 

that “if any persons being sane have contracted marriage, and 
insanity or madness have supervened in the case of one of the 

two, the marriages of such persons cannot be dissolved on 
account of this infirmity.” It is noticeable that this interpre- 
tation goes much farther than the Lex Romana Visigothorum 
itself, which simply rules that supervenient insanity does not 
dissolve a marriage ipso facto, and leaves the right of divorce 
intact. 3 ; 

The Council of Nantes appears in Mansi under the date of Council of 
658 a.p., but the canons bear internal evidence of a later date, “*"*** 
The only ground indeed for assigning the canons to this date is 
derived from the comparison of two pieces of evidence; one, 
that Flodsard, a canon of Rheims in the tenth century, speaks 
of a council of Nantes at this date; and the other, that in the 
ninth and following centuries these 20 canons were commonly 
quoted as having been passed at Nantes. It was concluded 
therefore that they were passed in 658 A.D. Whatever the true 
date of the canons may be, perhaps the end of the eighth, or 
the beginning of the ninth century, they lay down that a man 
may indeed put away his wife for adultery, but that he may in 
nowise marry another during her lifetime.? 

In 681 a.p. the Twelfth Council of Toledo was held under Twelfth 
the presidency of Julian, metropolitan of Toledo. King tats ὡς 
Ervigius was present “to open the proceedings and make 
known his wishes”; and it may well be also that the bishops 








1 Concilium Aurelianense IT., 533 A.D. (Mansi, tom. viii. p. 837.) 
2 Freisen, p. 778, quoting Hinel, Lea Rom. Visigoth. p. 368. 
3 Conciliwm Namnetense (Mansi, tom. xviii. p. 169.) 


Ze 


Council of 
Soissons, 


386 HOLY MATRIMONY 


took occasion to utilise their transfer of allegiance from King 
Wamba to King Ervigius by emphasising Church regulations 
which were opposed to the secular provisions. “It is the 
precept of the Lord,” says this Council,! “that a wife ought 
not to be dismissed by her husband, except for the cause of 
fornication.” The Council proceeds to enact that any man 
leaving his wife for whatsoever reason (quacunque occasione) 
short of this is to be excluded from communion till he return 
to her. There is no mention of permission of remarriage to 
the innocent husband, in the one case in which he is permitted 
to put his wife away. 

At the Council of Soissons in 744 A.D., which was attended 
by 23 bishops, it was decided in very ungrammatical Latin that 
in the case of a separation neither wife nor husband might 
marry again during the lifetime of the other partner, “ because 
a husband ought not to dismiss his wife except on the ground 
of her being taken in fornication.”? The case thus mentioned 
as permitting separation is not mentioned as an exception to 
the prohibition of remarriage. The decision of the council 
would be at variance with the secular law; but Pippin was 
entirely with the Frankish Church in its attempt to reform 
the morals of the people, and with that great object in view 
had perhaps not as yet noticed, or had held of little import, the 
contrariety of the laws of marriage. Into how terrible a state 
the Frankish Churches had at this time fallen may be gathered 
from a letter of 8. Boniface to Pope Zacharias, written in 
742 A.p., in which he describes the clergy themselves as guilty 
of the grossest immorality. The Council of Soissons was indeed 
an attempt at reformation, the impetus for which came entirely 
from without, first from S. Boniface, and then from Pope 
Zacharias. The canon we have quoted, which the degraded 
Frankish bishops were unable to express in the ordinary 
concords of grammar, was in truth, perhaps not so much the 
expression of their own convictions as the adoption of external 
suggestions, very possibly suggestions of 8. Boniface himself. 
However this may be, the rulings of the Council do not appear 





1 Conciliwm Toletanum xii , 681 A.D. (Mansi, tom. xi. p. 1034.) 
2 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, tom, i. p. 21, 


δὶ Sah 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 387 


to have commanded obedience or carried conviction, for we 
find Pippin almost immediately afterwards referring questions 
to Pope Zacharias on the subject. The reply given by 
Zacharias in 747 A.D. or three years after the Council of 
Soissons, has been already noticed. There was to be no 
remarriage in any case of separation. 

The councils which follow next shew that the Frankish 
Church, as it recovered something of external vitality, was 
by no means prepared to accept the full strictness of the 
Roman teaching on the subject of divorce. For eighty years 
prior to the Council of Soissons no council had been held, 
but nine years after it was held the Council of Verberies 
(A.D. 753), and three years after this again the Council of 
Compiegne (A.D. 756). The Council of Verberies (Vernon- 
sur-Seine) followed immediately upon the conclusion of 
Pippin’s triumphant expedition against the Lombard power 
in Italy, when he seriously undertook the re-establishment 
of discipline and the reorganisation of the dioceses of France. 
In this council it was decreed that remarriage during the 
lifetime of the separated partner was in certain cases ad- 
missible. In cases of adulterous incest, where the sin was 
held to have introduced such a complication that the marriage 
relation itself ought not to continue, the innocent party was 
allowed to remarry. (c. 2.) Remarriage was equally per- 
mitted to the husband when the wife had conspired against 
his life. (c. 5.) A man who had left his country under the 
pressure of necessity, but whose wife wilfully declined to 


Council of 
Verberies, 


follow, might receive another wife, cum poenitentia, if he- 


could not abstain. (c. 9.) The 17th canon lays down that 
the wife is not bound in the case of a marriage which is 
shewn not to have been consummated. The 21st canon 
rules that “aman who has dismissed his wife that she may 
take the veil is not to receive another.”? 

The Council of Compiegne, held in King Pippin’s palace 
in 756 A.D., may best be considered with that of Verberies. 
The 9th canon of Compiegne is a remarkable ruling. A 





1 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legum, tom. i. p. 22. 
202 


Council of 
Compiegne 


388 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Frank accepts a wife from his seigneur. After some time 
the vassal separates himself from his lord, and parts with 
his wife at the same time. He then takes another wife. 
The council decides that he is to keep the woman he took 
last (dllam, quam postea accepit, ipsam habeat). The 16th 
canon permits a man whose wife has left him to enter a 
convent to marry again. In so doing it contradicts the 
Council of Verberies of three years before. It is noticeable 
that this unusual concession received the sanction of the 
Papal Legate. George of Ostia represented Pope Stephen 
Ill. at the council, and after each of the canons to which 
he accorded his assent the words Georgius consensit are ap- 
pended. These words are not appended to the canons which 
concede remarriage in the cases of leprosy and of adulterous 
incest, but to the 16th canon they are appended. It will 
be remembered that the concession of remarriage, when one 
of the parties had entered a convent, was made by the 
Eastern Church. Theodore, in his Penitential, had intro- 
duced it into the West. (See next section.) But it was so 
evidently in conflict with the teaching of the vinewlwm that 
it never really obtained a hold on the conscience of the 
Western Church. The explanation of the assent of the 
Papal representative at Compiegne to this particular conces- 
sion may perhaps be found in the presence and influence of 
a representative of the Eastern Emperor. 

The 19th Canon of Compiegne permits remarriage even to 
the woman if her husband be a leper. Remarriage is also 
_ permitted to the innocent party in cases of adulterous incest, 
as at. Verberies.* 

This brief notice of the Canons of Verberies and Compiégne 
will show how, at a time when Pippin the Bref was on the 
most excellent terms with the Church, when, in fact, he had 
but just completed the memorable gift of the Italian 
temporalities to Pope Stephen III., the Frankish Church was 
following the precedent of the Church of the East by giving 
way unduly to the secular laws and customs of the Frankish 


1 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, tom, i. 27. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 389 


kingdom. The sunshine of secular favour has ever been the 
most potent of all instruments for the undermining of the 
Church’s loyalty to her ancient traditions. 

The Penitential of Theodore of Canterbury will be noticed 
in the next section. The continental Penitentials based upon 
it are of no great interest in the matter of divorce and 
remarriage. 

At Aachen in 789 A.D. an important synod was held in the Councils 
palace of Charlemagne. This synod cited the 102nd African * “** 
Canon, which forbids all remarriage during the lifetime of the 
separated partner.1 The Synod of Paris in 829 Α.Ὁ. similarly ana of 
ruled that a wife was not to be put away except for fornication, ἢ τ 
and that “they who, when their wives have been dismissed for 
the cause of fornication, marry others are pronounced to be 
adulterers by the sentence of the Lord.’”? 

The Synod of Worms in 829 A.D. repeated this judgment Synod of 
among the canons “which are to be announced to the people.”? “"™* 
The Lzcerpta Canonum of Lothair I. (835 A.D.) repeats verbatim oe 
the clumsy enactment of the Roman Council of 826 A.D., as canonum of 
already οἰ θα.’ pe 

The permission to remarry accorded by the Synods of Third 
Verberies and Compiegne to the innocent parties in cases of eee 
separation for adulterous incest bore fruit in the scandalous ae δ 
ease of Lothair and his wife Theutberga. This cause célébre, and Theut- 
for the consideration of which the third Council of Aachen was °°8* 
assembled in A.D. 862, need not stain our pages in any detail. 
Theutberga was accused of adulterous incest, and Lothair, 
who had a mistress whom he wished to make queen, sought 
permission from the Church to contract another marriage. 

The Council, to its eternal disgrace, conceded the permission, 
and it is a satisfaction to be able to add that Pope Nicholas I. 
excommunicated all who took part in the Council.® 

The Council of Bourges, held in 1051 A.D., is a somewhat 


1 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legum, tom. 1. p. 61. 
2 Conciliwm Parisiense VI. (Mansi, tom. xiv. p. 596.) 

3 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, tom. 1. p. 345, 
4 Ibid. p. 372. 

5 Mansi, tom. xv. pp. 613, sqq. 


Council of 
Bourges. 


Council of 
Rheims, 


Council 
of Tours. 


Council 
of Rouen. 


The 
Canonists. 


The Codex 
Dionysio- 
Hadrianus. 


390 HOLY MATRIMONY 


late instance of a council which appears to be disposed to 
admit remarriage after divorce for adultery. The heading of 
Canon 16 is, “That one who has dismissed his wife without the 
fault of fornication is not to marry another while she lives.” 
The Canon itself runs: “That those who dismiss their lawful 
Wives without the fault of fornication are not to accept others 
while these live; nor are the wives to accept other husbands, 
but let them be reconciled to one another.”! It is true that 
there is no statement here that those who put away their 
wives for adultery may marry again; yet the careful exclusion 
of their case from the prohibition of remarriage is certainly 
ground for presumption that this was the view of the 
Council. 

The Council of Rheims in 1049 a.p. makes no exception to 
its general ruling “that no one having deserted his lawful wife 
is to marry another.”? 

The Council of Tours in 1060 a.p. decrees (c. 9): “He who, 


dismissing his wife without the decision of the bishop, has 


married or shall have married another woman... let him 
know that he is excluded from the Body and Blood of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and from the precincts of the church.”? 

The Council of Rouen in 1072 Α.Ὁ. is clear upon the point 
that the bond of marriage is indissoluble except by death.* 

The Canonists who compiled the various collections of canons 


and other authorities were of considerable weight in determin- 


ing the judgment in the matter of marriage which eventually 
prevailed throughout the West. In 802 A.D. the second Council 
of Aachen adopted the whole of the so-called Codex Dionysio- 
Hadrianus. This collection was the work of Dionysius Exiguus, 
made in the early part of the sixth century, and after his time 
much extended by the hands of others. In its extended form 
Pope Hadrian sent it to Charlemagne in 774 A.D.; and hence 
its name Codex Dionysio-Hadrianus, and its adoption by the 
Council of Aachen. The various authorities contained in this 


1 Concilium Bituricense. (Mansi, tom. xix. p. 505.) 
2 Concilium Remense. (Mansi, tom. xix. p. 742.) 

3 Concilium Turonense. (Mansi, tom. xix. p. 928.) 
* Concilium Rothomagense. (Mansi, tom, xx. p. 38.) 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 391 


collection have been noticed already in these pages in their 
proper places. 

Benedict the Levite compiled a collection of canons and Benedict 

other authoritative utterances about the year 847 av. ΗΝ 
sums up altogether in favour of -the indissolubility of marriage : 
“That during the lifetime of husband or wife neither of them 
be united in another marriage”; and again: “ And if she have 
committed fornication, and her husband desire it, she is to be 
dismissed, but another wife may not be taken in marriage 
during her lifetime, because adulterers will not possess the 
kingdom of Gop, and her penitence is to be accepted.”! In 
another place he takes the ruling of the Council of Paris, and 
so alters its language as to altogether discourage the putting 
away of a wife, even in the case of adultery. Whereas the 
Council of Paris had said: “Et quod nisi causa fornicationis, 
ut Dominus ait, non sit uxor dimittenda, sed potius susti- 
nenda,” Benedict reads, “Et ut causa fornicationis non sit 
uxor secundum Domini sententiam dimittenda sed potius 
sustinenda.”” 

The Pseudo-Isidorian collection, which embodies the famed The 
False Decretals, and some other spurious matter, was probably ae 
the work of some dishonest compiler or compilers in the pro- collection 
vince of Rheims. It employs the work of Benedict the Levite, 
the date of which was 847 a.D.; and it is itself employed as an 
authority as early as 864 A.D. or 865 A.D. Its date will therefore 
lhe somewhere in the intervening years. The object of the 
collection appears to have been to exalt the episcopal authority 
at the expense of the secular and metropolitan authorities by 
continual reference to the papacy. Its fabrications are there- 
fore not directly concerned with the subject of this 
investigation, but in a document spuriously assigned to Pope 
Evaristus, in which the relation of a bishop to his flock is 
compared with the conjugal relation, the teaching is “that as 
a wife is not permitted to marry again while her husband lives, 
although he may have been guilty of fornication, so a church 








1 Freisen, Canonisches Eherecht, p. 793, quoting Benedict the Levite, III. 73, 
WOE 70: 
2 Ibid. quoting Benedict the Levite, 11. 235. 


Other 
Canonists. 


Gratian. 


392 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ought not to dismiss its bishop and take another.” The Pseudo- 
Isidore thus takes the entirely strict line, which he holds to be 
so well established as.to provide an undisputed premiss for a 
less acceptable argument. 

Rhabanus Maurus (A.D. 776-856)! and Hinkmar of Rheims 
(A.D. 806-882)? are both decided as to the entire indissolubility 
of the marriage bond. Hinkmar especially insists on the 
point repeatedly. Regino, abbot of Priim (915 A.D.),? and 
Burchard, bishop of Worms (1012 Α Ρ.),, both great authorities 
for the canon law of this period, give the passages on both 
sides in their collections. Ivo of Chartres (1117 A.D.), in his 
Decretum and Pannormia, has only admitted the authorities 
which take the stricter line.® 

But of all the Western canonists and compilers in the 
middle ages the most important, it need hardly be said, is 
Gratian, whose Decretum is the basis of the Corpus Juris 
Canonict. The date of the Deeretum (Concordantia discord- 
antium canonum) may be placed between 1139 A.D. and 
1142 ap. Gratian maintains throughout the entire indis- 
solubility of the marriage bond. That bond only exists 
indeed when consummation has followed the marital consent 
of the parties. Tull. the copula has sealed the contract there 
is no sacramentum and no indissoluble bond. Where once 
the copula has completed a marriage, there is found the 
sacramentum, and there the bond is indissoluble. Accordingly 
Gratian decides all the points of difference between the 
Eastern and Western Churches in the sense now familiar to 
the canon law of the West. Thus neither imprisonment,® 
nor absence,’ nor the choice of the religious life,’ nor 
slavery,? nor even apostasy, can sever the bond of a marriage 
which has once been consummated.!®? The same is true of 


1 Freisen, p. 795. 2 Ibid. p. 798. 3 [bid. p. 801. 


4 Tbid. p. 801. 5 Ibid. p. 802. 
6 Gratian’s Decretum (Concordantia discordantium canonwm), ce. 1, 2, C. 34, 
q. 1: 


"7 Tbid. «, 4, C. 84, q. 1. 


8 Ibid. 0 19 23, Ο 27; q. 2, ΟΥ 33> q. 5. 
9 Tbid. dictum to ὁ. 6, ΟἹ 29, q. 2. 
10 Thid. dictum to c. 2, C. 28, q. 2. 


— 


‘ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 393 


physical incapacity when it occurs at a period subsequent 
to the marriage.t_ The bond having once existed cannot be 
dissolved for supervenient causes. In the case of adultery 
the innocent party is at liberty to put away the offending 
party, but the bond remains in such sort that the remarriage 
of the innocent party is itself adultery. Among his summings- 
up are—“ The bond of marriage cannot be dissolved by forni- 
cation” ;?_ “A marriage which, once entered into, is approved 
can in nowise be dissolved” ;? “Whether the husband has 
departed from the wife, or the wife from the husband, for 
the cause of fornication, [the person so departing] 1s for- 
bidden to cleave to another” ;* “He commits adultery who 
presumes to marry one dismissed by her husband” ;° “She is 
proved an adulteress who during the lifetime of her husband 
marries another.’ Death is the only cause admitted by 
Gratian as dissolving the vinculwm when once it has existed. 
He concludes the canons which he cites with a ditum’7— 
“By these authorities it is most evidently shewn that who- 
soever shall have put away his wife for the cause of fornica- 
tion cannot marry another during her lifetime, and if he 
shall have so married he is guilty of adultery.’§ 

Reviewing the teaching and practice of the Churches of summary 
Western Europe, from the Council of Angers, in a.p. 453, % Peto% 
to the time of Gratian, it is possible to trace a long and 
difficult struggle with the license of the secular laws and the 
lax customs of the people. At times, as in the East, there is 
a tendency on the part of the Church authorities to give way 
on the point of remarriage after divorce, and so to surrender 
the great principle of indissolubility. The Councils of Vannes 
(A.D. 465) and Agde (A.D. 506), at the beginning of the period, 
and the Councils of Verberies (A.D. 753) and Compiéene 
(A.D. 756), at a later date, are the most conspicuous examples 


1 Gratian’s Decretwm (Concordantia discordantium canonwm) ο. 25, 26, C. 32, 


lad 2 


lida Cat no, at: SP once Gas, Qe Us 
- 7 τ. G0, Cast, Oars SEL dae Ὁ Ue 9 ἢ fs 
OV bid GAT, ὑπ τ 7 Ibid. dictum to c. 16, C. 82, q. 7. 


8 For a full analysis of Gratian’s Decretum on this subject, see Freisen, 
pp. 802 sqq. 


394 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of this tendency. The two last-named Councils did not 
restrict their sanction of remarriage to cases of divorce for 
adultery. On the whole, however, the tradition of primitive 
Christianity was faithfully guarded. Remarriage after divorce 
is forbidden by the Councils of Angers (A.D. 453), Nantes 
(A.D. 658), Aachen (A.D. 789), Paris (A.D. 829), Worms (A.D. 
829), Rheims (A.p. 1049), Tours (A.p. 1060), and Rouen (A.D. 
1072). The Canonists, and notably Gratian, followed in the 
same path. 

From the time of Gratian the teaching of the Decretwm on 
the subject of divorce and remarriage was practically the 
teaching of the whole Western Church. The controversy was, 
in fact, closed, and for the purpose of this treatise it is useless 
to pursue the investigation farther. For the past seven 
hundred years the historic churches of Western Christendom 
have declined to recognise remarriage after divorce. 


K. The Churches of the british Isles. 
AUTHORITIES. 
Synopus atria 8. Parrici. 
Anno Incerto.+ 


c. 26. Audi dominum dicentem: Que adhaeret meretrici, wnum 
corpus eficitur. Item adultera lapidetur ; id est, huic vitio moriatur, 
ut desinat crescere, quae non desinit moechari. Item, s2 adulterata 
Juerit mulier, numquid revertitur ad virum suum priorem. Item, non 
licet viro dinuttere uxorem, nist ob causam fornicationis, ac si dicat ob 
hane causam ; unde si dueat alteram velut post mortem prioris, non 
vetant. 

c. 28. Hadem ratione observanda sunt prima vota et prima 
conjugia, aut secundis prima non sint irrita, nisi fuerint adulterata. 


POENITENTIALE VINNIAI. 2 


§ 42. Uxorem a viro non discedere dicimus, sed si discederit, 
manere innuptam aut viro reconciliari secundum apostolum. 


1 Mansi, tom. vi. p. 526. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical 
Documents, vol, ii. p. 337. 
* Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abendlindischen Kirche, p. 117. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 395 


§ 43. Si alicujus uxor fornicata fuerit et habitet cum alio viro, 
non oportet adducere uxorem aliam, quamdiu fuerit uxor ejus viva. 

§ 45. Sic et mulier si dimissa fuerit ex viro suo, non oportet alio 
viro copulari, quamdiu fuerit vir ejus in corpore prior, sed expectabit 
eum innupta in omni patientia et castitate, si forte det Deus 
patientiam in corde viri ejus.... 


Canonges Wattict.! 


Canon 27. 
Si quis causa fornicationis alterius uxorem infecerit, capti morte 
moriantur, et qui eos interfecerit, nullam se timeat habere causam. 


Canon 59 (in Cod. Bigot.). 

Si quis legitimae legis voluntate patrum nuptam filio junxerit et 
juxta hoc concubinam ancillam sibi habere praesumserit, ipse ab 
Ecclesia Dei et omni Christianorum mensa sit extraneus, nisi ad 
poenitentiam revocetur. 


Canon 60 (in Cod. Bigot.). 

Si quis ancillam suam sibi in matrimonio habere voluerit et de 
rebus suis habet potestatem, si voluerit postea venundare eam, non 
conceditur. Quodsi eam venundare voluerit, eum damnari jubemus, 
et ancillam illam in sacerdotis ponimus voluntatem. 


GILDAS. 
Epistola (547 a.p. or 550 a.p.).? 
Reges habet Britannia, sed tyrannos; judices habet, sed impios: 
saepe praedantes et concutientes, sed innocentes; vindicantes et 


patrocinantes, sed reos et latrones ; quam plurimas conjuges habentes, 
sed scortas et adulterantes. 


Councin oF HerrrorD (673 Α.}.).ὃ 
Decimum, 


Pro conjugiis ut nulli liceat nisi legitimum habere connu- 
bium. Nullus incestum faciat, nullus conjugem propriam, nisi, ut 
sanctum evangelium docet, fornicationis causa relinquat. Quod si 
quisquam propriam expulerit conjugem legitimo sibi matrimonio 
conjunctam, si Christianus esse recte voluerit, nulli alteri copuletur ; 
sed ita permaneat, aut propriae reconcilietur conjugi. 





1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. 1. p. 191, 
2" Ibid. vol. 1." p. 48. 
3 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 118, from Bede, iv. 5. 


396 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ARCHBISHOP THEODORE. 
The Penitential. 
ibe ce es 


8.4. Si quis vir uxorem suam invenerit adulteram, et noluit 
dimittere eam, sed in matrimonio adhuc habere, annis II bus peniteat, 
II dies in ebdomada et jejunia religionis aut quamdiu ipsa peniteat, 
abstineat se a matrimonio ejus, quia adulterium perpetravit illa. 

§ 13. Si ab aliquo sua discesserit uxor, I annum poeniteat ipsa, 
si inpulluta revertatur ad eum, ceterum III; ipse unum, si aliam 
duxerit. 

Τὰ aca 2: 

δ. 5. Si cujus uxor fornicata fuerit, licet dimittere eam et aliam 
accipere ; hoe est, si vir dimiserit uxorem suam propter fornicationem, 
si prima fuerit, licitum est ut aliam accipiat uxorem; illa vero, si 
voluerit penitere peccata sua, post V annos alium virum accipiat. 

δ 6. Mulieri non licet virum dimittere licet sit fornicator, nisi 
forte pro monasterio. Basilius hoc judicavit. 

§ 7. Legitimum conjugium non licet frangi sine consensu 
amborum. 

§ ὃ, Potest tamen alter alteri licentiam dare accedere ad servi- 
tutem Dei in monasterium et sibi nubere, si in primo conubio erit, 
secundum Grecos; et tamen non est canonicum; sin autem in 
secundo, non licet vivente viro vel uxore. 

Maritus si se ipsum in furtu aut fornicatione servum facit vel 
quocunque peccato, mulier si prius non habuit conjugium, habet 
potestatem post annum alterum accipere virum ; digamo non licet. 

§ 11. Quaecunque mulier adulterium perpetravit, in potestate 
viri est, si velit reconciliare mulieri adulterae. Si reconciliavit, in 
clero non proficit vindicta illius, ad proprium virum pertinet. 

§ 12. Vir et mulier in matrimonio, si ille voluerit Deo servire et 
illa noluerit, aut illa voluerit et ille noluerit; vel ille infirmatus 
seu ila infirmata fuerit; tamen omnino cum consensu amborum 
separentur. 

δ΄ 19. Si mulier discesserit a viro suo despiciens eum, nolens 
revertere et reconciliari viro, post V annos cum consensu Episcopi 
aliam accipere licebit uxorem. 

§ 20. Si in captivitatem per vim ducta redimi non potest, post 
annum alteram accipere. 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, de. vol. 111. p. 188. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 397 


§ 21. Item, si in captivitatem ducta fuerit, vir ejus V annos 
expectet ; similiter autem et mulier si viro talia contingerint. 

§ 22. Si igitur vir alteram duxerat uxorem, priorem de captivitate 
reversam recipiat, posteriorem dimittat: similiter autem illa, sicut 
superius diximus, si viro talia contingerint, faciat. 

§ 23. Si cujus uxorem hostis abstulerit, et ipse eam iterum 
adipisci non potest, licet aliam accipere ; melius est sic facere quam 
fornicationes, 

§ 24. Si iterum post haec uxor illa venerit ad eum, non debet 
recipi ab eo, si aliam habet; sed illa tollat aliam virum sibi, si unum 
ante habuerat. Eadem sententia stat de servis transmarinis. 


THe DiaLoGvue or EcBert, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK (A.D. 732 x 766).! 
XIII. Interrogatio. 


Quod si ex convenientia amborum legitimum dissolvitur 
conjugium, propter infirmitatem viri vel uxoris, si liceat sano inconti- 
nenti secundum inire conubium, infirmo consensum praebente, et 
promittente sese continentiam in vosuaiye servaturum: Vestra 
‘Sanctitas quid de hoc judicat ? 


Responsio. 


Nemo contra Evangelium, nemo contra apostolum sine 
vindicta facit, idcireo consensum minime praebemus_ adulteris ; 
onera tamen, quae sine periculo portari non possunt, nemini im- 
ponimus, ea vero, quae Dei sunt mandata, confidenter indicimus. 
Quem autem infirmitas implendi praepedit, uno profecto multum 
reservamus judicio Dei. 

Tgitur ne forte videamur silentio fovere adulteros, aut diabolus qui 
decipit adulteros de adulteris exultet, ulterius audi: ‘“‘Quod Deus 
conjunxit, homo non separet.” Et item: ‘‘ Qui potest capere, capiat.” 
Sepe namque temporum  permutatione, necessitas legem frangit. 
Quid enim fecit David, quando esuriit? et tamen sine peccato est. 
Ergo in ambiguis non est ferenda sententia. Sed consilia necesse est 
periclitari pro salute aliorum, hac conditione interposita, ut ei qui se 
continentiae devovit, nullo modo concedatur secundas inire nuptias, 
vivente priore. 


JupDiIcIuM CLEMENTIS (Willibrord 1) 690 a.p.-693 a.p.? 


14. Si quis uxorem legitimam dimittit et aliam ducit, ex- 
communicetur a Christianis, etiamsi illa prior uxor consentiat. 





1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, de. vol. ii. p, 409. 2 Ihd, p. 227. 


398 HOLY MATRIMONY 


15. Non licet legitimo conjugio separari, nisi amborum consensus 
fuerit, ut innupti maneant, 

19. Si cujus uxorem hostes rapuerint, et non potuerit eripere 
eam, post annum integrum licet ei aliam ducere, et si postea redierit, 
licet eam alio viro ducere. 


CaNONES ADDAMNARI VEL ADDOMINARI.! 

c. 16. De meretrice conjuge sic idem interpretatus est, quia 
meretrix erit decusso proprii mariti jugo et secundi mariti inito vel 
tertii, cujus maritus illa vivente alteram non suscipiet, quia nescimus 
illam auctoritatem, quam legimus in quaestionibus Romanorum, 
utrum idoneis an falsis testibus ornatam fuisse. 


THE VENERABLE BEDE. 
in S. Mare. x. 

(uae Deus conjunxit, unam faciendo carnem viri et feminae, haec 
homo non potest separare, nisi forsitan solus Deus. Homo separat, 
quando propter desiderium secundae uxoris primam dimittit. Deus 
separat qui et conjunxerat, quando ex consensu propter servitutem 
Dei, eo quod tempus in arcto sit, sic habemus uxores quasi non 
habentes .. . 

Una ergo solummodo causa est carnalis, fornicatio: una spiritalis, 
timor Dei, ut uxor dimittatur, sicut multi religionis causa fecisse 
leguntur. Nulla autem causa est Dei lege perscripta, ut vivente ea 
quae relicta est, alia ducatur. 


CANONS ATTRIBUTED. TO S. PaTRIOK. 
(Sinodus Episcoporum, id est, Patricii, Auxilii, Issernini.)* 
Canon 19, 


Muher Christiana, quae acciperit virum honestis nuptis, et post- 
modum discesserit a primo, et junxerit se adulterio; quae haec fecit, 


excommonis sit. 
Laws oF Howe THE Goop. 


VIII. Or Women. 4 
Venedotian Code, Book II. e. ΠῚ 


§ 1. The first of [the laws of the women] is: If a woman be 





1 Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abendlindischen Kirche, p. 117. 
2 Migne’s Ed. vol. ili. p. 230. 

3 Haddan and Stubbs, Cowneils, ke. vol. ii. p. 329. 

4 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 211 seqg. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 9599 


given in marriage she is to abide by her agweddi! unto the end of 
the seventh year; and if there be three nights wanting of the 
seventh current year, and they separate, let them share into two 
portions everything belonging to them. 

§ 9. And if they separate before the seventh year, let there be 
paid to her her agweddi, her argivreu,? and her cowyll ;? and if she 
was given when a maid, whatever of those things remain she shall ᾿ 
have; and if she leave her husband before the seventh year she 
loses all these, except her cowyll, and her wyneb-werth* for his gowyn.° 

8. 10. Should her husband be leprous, or have fetid breath, or be 
incapable of marital duties; if on account of one of these things 
she leave her husband, she is to have the whole of her property. 

§ 12. If by dying and living they separate, let the sick, aided by 
the confessor, share, and let the healthy choose. 

§ 14. If living they separate, let her and her property remain in 
the house to the end of nine days and nine nights, to ascertain 
whether the separation be legal; and if the separation be right, at 
the end of the ninth day let her property go before, and, after the 
last penny, let her go herself. 

δ 17. If the husband take another wife, after he shall nave 
parted from the first wife, the first is free. | 

δ 18. If a man part from his wife, and she be minded to take 
another husband, and the first husband should repent having parted 
from his wife, and overtake her with one foot in the bed and the 
other outside the bed, the prior husband is to have the woman. 

§ 31. Whoever shall sleep three nights with a woman, from 
the time the fire is covered until it be uncovered the following 
morning, and after that willeth to separate; let him give her an ox 
that shall be worth twenty pence, another worth thirty pence, and 
another worth sixty pence; and if he take her to house and home, 
and she live with him unto the end of seven years; thenceforwards 
he is to share with her, as with a betrothed wife. 


Dimetian Code, Book 11. ὁ. 18. 


§ 4. A man is free to forsake his wife, if she notoriously attach 
herself to another man; and she is to obtain nothing of her right, 





1 aoweddi=dower. 2. argivreu= paraphernalia. 3 cowyll = maiden-fee. 
4 wyneb-werth = face-worth (fine payable for insult), 
> sowyn=fine due to the wife from the husband for the latter’s adultery. 


400 HOLY MATRIMONY 


excepting the three things which are not to be taken from a woman ; 
and the seducer is to pay to the lawful husband his saraad. 

§ 28. If a man deserts his wife unlawfully, and takes another, 
the rejected wife is to remain in her house until the end of the 
ninth day ; and then, if she be suffered to depart entirely from her 
husband, everything belonging to her is to go in the first place out 
of the house ; and then she is to go last out of the house, after all 
her property: after that, on bringing the other into the house, he is 
to give dilysdawd' to the first wife; because no man by law is to 
have two wives. 

§ 29. Whoever shall leave his wife, and shall repent leaving her, 
she having been given to another husband; if the first husband 
overtake her with one foot in the bed, and the other out; the first 
husband, by law, is to have her. 


Laws oF THE NorTHuMBRIAN Prigsts (950 a.p.).? 

35. If a priest dismiss one wife, and take another, let him be 
anathema. 

54. If any man dismiss his lawful wife [while she is] living, and 
marry another, let him want Gop’s mercy, unless he make satisfaction 
for it; but let every one retain his lawful wife so long as she lives, 
unless they both choose to be separated by the bishop’s consent, 
and are willing to preserve their chastity for the future. 


PENITENTIAL CANONS, KNOWN AS THE Cops or S. Dunstan 
(about 963 a.p.).° 

27. He that relinquisheth his wife and taketh another woman 
breaketh wedlock. Let none of those rights which belong to 
Christians be allowed him, either during life, or at his death, nor 
let him be buried with Christian men: and let the same be done to 
a delinquent wife: and let the kindred that were present at the 
contract suffer the same doom, except they will first be converted 
and earnestly make satisfaction. 


S. ALPHEGE. 
Laws Ecclesiastical and Canons at Eanham (το LOGO }ee 
And never let it be that a Christian marry within the fourth 


1 Dilysdawd = assurance. 

2. Johnson's English Canons, Ed. Bacon, vol. i. p. 380. 
3 Ibid. vol. i. p. 433. 

4 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 484-5. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 401 


degree of relation, among his own kindred that is within the fourth 
generation ; nor to the widow of one that is so near akin, in worldly 
affinity, nor one nearly related to the wife, whom he formerly had, 
nor to any consecrated nun; nor to his spiritual relations; nor to 
one that is divorced. Nor let him who desires to observe Gon’s law 
aright, and to guard himself against hell-fire, have more wives than 
one ; but continue with her only so long as she lives. 


Kine Cnure’s Laws Eccrssiasticat (4.p. 1017).} 


7. We enjoin and charge and command in Gop’s name, that no 
Christian man do ever take a wife of his own kin within the sixth 
degree of relation, nor the widow of a kinsman so nearly related to 
him, nor of the kindred of a wife whom he formerly had, nor of his 
sureties at baptism, nor a consecrated nun, nor a divorced woman, 
nor practise any unlawful copulation. Let no man have more than 
one wife, and let her be a wedded wife, and let him remain with her 
only so long as she lives, if he will rightly observe Gop’s will, and 
secure his soul against hell flames, 


RerormMatTio Lecum EccLesiasticaRuM.? 
Tit. De Adulteriis et Divortiis, 

Cap. 5. Cum alter conjunx adulterii damnatus est, alteri licebit 
Innocenti novum ad matrimonium (si velit) progredi. Nec enim 
usque adeo debet integra persona crimine alieno premi, caelibatus ut 
invite possit obtrudi: quapropter integra persona non habebitur 
adultera, si novo se matrimonio devinxerit ; quoniam ipse causam 
adulterii Christus excepit. 


Cap. ὃ. Divortium propter desertum matrimonium. 


Cum alter ex conjugibus aufugerit, seque abalienarit ab altero, si 
persona absens possit inveniri, consiliis, adhortationibus, et poenis 
cogatur ut ad conjugem se rursus adjungat ... quam ad rem si nulla 
ratione possit adduci, contumax in eo persona debet accipi .. . et 
propterea perpetuae carceris custodiae dedatur, et deserta persona 
novarum potestatem nuptiarum ab Ecclesiastico judice sumat. . 
Absentem requiri volumus ... Si se non ostenderit, aut ejus 
vicarius. . . judex illi biennium vel triennium indulgebit . . . quo 
tempore consumpto , , . destituta persona nuptiarum vinculis liber- 





1 Johnson's English Canons, Ed. Bacon, vol. i. p. 506. 
* Kd. 1640, p. 49, quoted by Keble, Sequel, &c. pp. 201-2. 


22D 


402 HOLY MATRIMONY 


abitur, et novum sibi conjugem, si velit, sumat ... Secundum 
matrimonium plenissimo jure valeat. 


Cap. 9. Divortium propter nimis longam conjugis absentiam. 

@uando non aufugerit conjunx, sed militiam, aut mercaturam, aut 
aliquam habet hujusmodi legitimam et honestam peregrinationis 
suae causam, et abfuerit diu domo, largientur alteri conjugi judices 

. . biennu vel triennii spatium, in quo mariti reditum expectet. 
(Juo tempore toto si non revertatur, nec de vita possit illius aliquid 
esse explorati . . . alteri conjugi novas concedi nuptias aequum est. 


Cap. 10. Inimicitiae capitales divortium inducunt. 

Inter conjuges si capitales intercedant inimicitiae, tamque vehe- 
menter exarserint, ut alter alterum aut venenis appetat, aut aliqua 
vel aperta vi, vel occulta peste vitam velit eripere . . . divortio 
volumus hujusmodi personas distrahi. 


Cap. 11. Malae tractationis crimen tandem divortium inducit. 


Si vir in uxorem saeviat, et acerbitatem in ea nimiam factorum et 
verborum expromat . . . si ne pignoribus quidei, aut fidejussoribus 
coerceri potest maritus, nec asperitatem velit isto modo deponere, 
tum capitalem illum conjugis inimicum esse existimandum est, et 
illus vitam infestare. Quapropter divortii remedio periclitanti 
succurrendum erit.. . 


INSTITUTION OF A CHrisTiAN Man (1545 a-p.).} 
In marriages lawfully made, and according to the ordinance of 


Matrimony prescribed by Gop and Holy Church, the bond thereof 
can by no means be dissolved during the lives of the parties. 


THe Book or Common PRAYER. 
The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony. 
1. THE QUESTIONS OF THE BETROTHAL, 
M. Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live 
together after Gop’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony ἢ 
Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness 


and in health ; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so 
long as ye both shall live ? 





1 Formularies of Faith, ce. Oxford, 1825, p. 91, quoted by Keble, Sequel, &e, 
p. 202, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 403 


The Man shall answer, 
I will. 
Then shall the Priest say unto the Woman, 

N. Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband, to live 
together after Gon’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony ἵ 
Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in 
sickness and in health ; and, forsaking all other, keep thee oy unto 
him, so long as ye ih shall live ? 


The Woman shall answer, 


I will. 


2. THE PLIGHTING OF THE TROTH. 


Then shall they give their troth to each other in this manner. The Minister, 
receiving the Woman at her father’s or friend’s hands, shall cause the Man 
with his right hand to take the Woman by her right hand, and to say after 
him as followeth : 


I M. take thee NV. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from 
this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness 
and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according 
to Gon’s holy ordinance ; and thereto I plight thee my troth. 

Then shall they loose their hands ; and the Woman, with her right hand taking 
the man by his right hand, shall likewise say after the Minister, 

I N. take thee MZ. to my wedded husband, to have and to hold 
from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in 
sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do 
part, according to Gop’s holy ordinance ; and thereto I give thee my 


troth. 
3. THE JOINING OF THE HANDS. 


Then shall the Priest join their right hands together, and say, 
Those whom Gop hath joined together let no man put asunder. 


4, THE COLLECT BEFORE THE BLESSING. 


O Gop, who by thy mighty power hast made all things of nothing; 
who also (after other things set in order) didst appoint, that out of 
man (created after thine own image and similitude) woman should 
g; and, knitting them together, didst teach that 
it should never be lawful to put asunder those whom thou by 
Matrimony hadst made one: O Gop, who hast consecrated the state 
of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified 
and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and 


his Church ; Look mercifully upon these thy servants, that both this 
2D 2 


take her beginning ; 


404 HOLY MATRIMONY 


man may love his wife, according to thy Word (as Christ did love 
his spouse the Church, who gave himself for it, loving and cherishing 
it even as his own flesh), and also that this woman may be loving and 
amiable, faithful and obedient to her husband ; and in all quietness, 
sobriety, and peace be a follower of holy and godly matrons. O 
Lord, bless them both, and grant them to inherit thy everlasting 
kingdom ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 


AYLIFFE. 
Parergon. ‘Title, Of Divorce. 

But it is to be observed that by the Canon Law the Bond of 
Marriage is not dissolved on the score of adultery or fornication, but 
it only operates a separation of their conversation at Bed and Board ; 
nor can this Law grant a Power unto either of the persons in 
Wedlock of passing to a second marriage. 

I shall conclude this first cause with the famous case of the 
Marchioness of Northampton here in England, who was convicted of 
adultery in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and the Marquis was 
thereupon divorced from her in the beginning of King Edward the 
Sixth’s reign ; and thereupon a Commission was granted, directed to 
Archbishop Cranmer, and nine other divines, to certify whether she 
continued his wife, notwithstanding the Divorce a mensa et thoro ; 
and whether by the word of Gop he might marry again. But before 
this matter was determined he married again, at which the Privy 
Council were offended; because, according to the Canon Law, the 
first marriage continued good even after such a divorce. The 
Marquis insisted that, by the law of Gop, the very bond of marriage 
was dissolved for adultery ; and that marriage was never thought to 
be indissolvable till the Romish Church made it a Sacrament. But 
yet that Church, by the help of the Canonists, had invented such 
distinctions which made it easy to be avoided, That it would be 
very inconvenient, if a marriage should not be dissolved on the 
account of adultery; because then the innocent person must live 
with the guilty, or be tempted to commit the like sin, if the bond of 
marriage still subsisted. Soon afterwards the delegates gave sentence 
in favour of the second marriage, and, amongst other things, they 
founded it on Christ’s definition of marriage, viz., that two should be 
one flesh. So that when that was divided, as it must be by adultery, 
the marriage itself was dissolved. ’Tis true, the sentence given by 
these delegates was about four years afterwards confirmed by a 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 405 


private Act of Parliament, to which two Peers and two Bishops 
dissented ; and the second marriage was declared to be good by the 
law of Gop, any Canon or Ecclesiastical Law to the contrary not- 
withstanding. But in the very next year that Act was repealed, and 
the reason mentioned in the preamble was because it was obtained 
upon private views, and that it was an encouragement for licentious 
persons to procure divorces on false allegations, 


. 


The two last causes of a divorce (Infidelity and Ingressus Religionis), 
according to the Canon Law, being not admitted here in England, 
I shall omit to handle them under this title specially ; and therefore 
I shall proceed to speak of a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. In all 
those cases where such a divorce was, the marriage was not de jure, 
according to the Canonists; because it was void ab initio. For 
where the incapacity arises from any matter precedent to the 
marriage, there the marriage is only de facto, and a sentence of 
divorce in such case is only declaratory, that the marriage is dis- 
solved ; for it was absolutely void before, and either of the parties 
might marry again, though the other was living. But it is otherwise 
when the divorce is occasioned ex causa subsequenti, as in cases of 
adultery, cruelty, and the like. For there, the marriage being once 
good, it can never be dissolved a vinculo , because such subsequent 
cause cannot effect the bond of matrimony, though it is sufficient to 
separate the parties ὦ mensa et thoro, which is in the nature of a 
temporal, and not a perpetual divorce: And if either of the parties 
shall marry again in the lifetime of the other, such marriage is void ; 
and so it was adjudged in the case of Rye and Fulcomb. And as a 
further confirmation of the law in this matter it was afterwards 
adjudged, That a divorce causa adulterii is no bar of dower, which 
shews that the marriage is not dissolved. 


The third cause of a Divorce is a machination of the wife’s death, 
or any other act of cruelty: For if the husband does by poison, or 
any other severe usage, lay snares against his wife’s life, she may 
sue out a separation qguoad thorum et mensam. 


The Spiritual Court has a proper jurisdiction in cases of this 
nature, and we have several instances of suits brought there by the 
wife for a separation upon the score of cruelty. 


° e > ° @ 


406 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The wife of one Porter was divorced from him on the same 
account, but it was only ὦ mensa et thoro: For this kind of divorce 
gives the wife liberty to live separately from her husband, which 
otherwise she could not do; and ’tis no more than a provision for 
her safety, and to avoid his cruel treatment of her, since she cannot 
marry again during his life without incurring the danger of felony. 


Burn. 
Ecclesiastical Law.+ 

And this doctrine, that neither of the parties shall contract 
matrimony during each other’s life, hath been confirmed by the 
temporal judges in the case of Foliambe, who, having been divorced 
from his wife for incontinency on her part, married again during her 
life ; and the second marriage was declared to be void, because it was 
only a divorce a thoro et mensa. 

Causes for separation a vincwlo are consanguinity or affinity within 
the degrees prohibited ; also impuberty, malformation, or frigidity, 
where the marriage itself was merely void ab initio, and the sentence 
of divorce only declaratory of its being so. 

Divorce a thoro et mensa is when the use of matrimony, as the 
cohabitation of the married persons, or their mutual conversation, is 
prohibited for a time, or without limitation of time. And this is in 
cases of adultery, cruelty, or the like, in which the marriage, having 
been originally good, is not dissolved, nor affected as to the vinculum 
or bond, 

THe LaMBeTH CONFERENCE, 1888. 
Report of the Committee? appointed to consider the subject of Divorce. 


The Committee appointed to consider the subject of ‘ Divorce, 
and the question whether it may be practicable to offer any advice 
or suggestion which may help the Bishops and Clergy towards 
agreement in their action concerning it,” report as follows: 

They think it necessary to call attention to the fact that in very 


1 Kd. Phillimore, vol. ii. pp. 500-2. 
2 Names of the Members of the Committee : 


Bishop of Chester (Chairman). Bishop of Huron. 
" Bombay. 5 Maryland. 
τ Dover. ὃν Mississippi. 
os Durham. Ἢ Quincy. 


+ Exeter. Ἢ Singapore. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 407 


many Christian nations there is evidently a growing laxity of 
principle and of practice with regard to Divorce, and that in some 
countries strong attempts have been made to afford further facilities 
for it, with the result of weakening and lowering, both in law and in 
popular sentiment, the idea of the sanctity of marriage. 


1. They therefore consider it important to declare that, inasmuch 
as our Lord’s words expressly forbid Divorce, except in the case of 
fornication or adultery, the Christian Church cannot recognise 
Divorce in any other than the excepted case, or give any sanction to 
the marriage of any person who has been divorced contrary to this 
law, during the life of the other party. 


2. They would add that under no circumstances ought the guilty 
party, in a case of Divorce for fornication or adultery, to be 
regarded, during the lifetime of the innocent party, as a fit recipient 
of the blessing of the Church on marriage. 


3. They recognise the fact that there always has been a difference 
of opinion in the Church on the question whether our Lord meant to 
forbid marriage to the innocent party in a Divorce for adultery: and 
they recommend that the Clergy should not be instructed to refuse 
the Sacraments or other privileges of the Church to those who, 
under civil sanction, are thus married. 


4, But whereas doubt has been entertained whether our Lord 
meant to permit such marriage to the innocent party, the Committee 
are unwilling to suggest any precise instructions in this matter, and 
recommend that, where the laws of the land will permit, the 
determination should be left to the judgment of the Bishop of the 
Diocese, whether the Clergy would be justified in refraining from 
pronouncing the blessing of the Church on such unions. 


Signed on behalf of the Committee, 


ὟΝ. CESTR: 
Chairman. 


Resolutions formally adopted by the Conference. 


4, (a) That, inasmuch as Our Lord’s words expressly forbid Divorce, 
except in the case of fornication or adultery, the Christian 
Church cannot recognise Divorce in any other than the ex- 
cepted case, or give any sanction to the marriage of any 
person who has been divorced contrary to this law, during 
the life of the other party. 


408 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(Β) That under no circumstances ought the guilty party, in the 
case of a divorce for fornication or adultery, to be regarded, 
during the lifetime of the innocent party, as a fit recipient 
of the blessing of the Church on marriage. 


(c) That, recognising the fact that there always has been a 
difference of opinion in the Church on the question whether 
Our Lord meant to forbid marriage to the innocent party in 
a divorce for adultery, the Conference recommends that the 
Clergy should not be instructed to refuse the Sacraments or 
other privileges of the Church to those who, under civil 
sanction, are thus married. 


Intro- By members of the Anglican Churches a peculiar interest: 

ductory nite 

Statement. and value must always be held to attach to the traditions of 
the Churches of the British Isles. The Celtic Churches may 
indeed. have been as far removed in their traditions from 
those sees of the English Church which looked to 8. Augustine 
and to the guidance of Rome, as any Church in Christendom 
was removed from any other, but both groups played their 
part in building up the present Churches of the English- 


speaking peoples, and their traditions and influences are much 


intertwined. : 
The — It will not be necessary for our present purposes to enquire 
more ® very closely into the social ethics of the early British and 


ae Irish peoples in the matter of marriage. In the period of 
very the Roman invasions the Britons of the South appear to 
corrupt have been not far removed from the practice of promiscuity. 
The introduction of Roman habits, little elevated as these 
too often were, could hardly fail to raise the British con- 
ception of the marriage relation, but the advent of Chris- 
tianity would find among the Britons no high standard of 
morals. In Ireland polygamy appears to have been practised 
in ancient times. In Scotland the law of succession among 
the Picts was through the females, and Bede says that this 


1 Whitley Stokes, Introduction to Tripartite Life of 8S. Patrick, p. clxviii. 
Yet if the other grounds for this opinion are not more to the point than the 
“‘fer den-detche,” husband of one wife, required by S. Patrick as a qualifica- 
tion for the bishopric of Leinster, the opinion cannot be regarded as well 
founded, 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 409 


law obtained in his day. Dr. Skene remarks: “On examining 
the list of the Pictish kings down to the times of Bede, we 
find that there are numerous instances of brothers succeeding 
each other, but that in no one instance does a son succeed his 
father. Where, therefore, there were several sons of the same 
mother they appear to have succeeded each other according 
to a law of male succession of very general application, which 
preferred brothers before sons; but when the last brother 
had succeeded, the period seems to have arrived expressed by 
Bede in the words ‘ubi res perveniret in dubium,’ and then the 
succession went through daughters in preference to sons. Such 
a custom must manifestly have arisen from an originally lax 
relation among the sexes, when no filiation could be predicated 
with certainty except between a son and a mother, and thus 
alone the continuance of the royal blood could be secured.”? 

For the purpose of this treatise these references will shew 
sufficiently that when Christianity was brought to bear upon 
the Celtic populations of the British Isles it found in them 
races of which at any rate portions had to be reclaimed 
from gross licentiousness. In the Briton of the South this 
licentiousness was covered by a veneer of Roman civilisa- 
tion; in the Scot and in the Pict it had rather the character 
of a brutal savagery; but “the corruption of all flesh” had 
set its mark upon all the British races. It was not in a 
generation or in two or three generations that such phases 
of social laxity as those of which we thus catch glimpses 
could be eradicated and forgotten, even though the power at 
work was the power of the grace of Gop in the Christian 
Church. Yet, when this is fully admitted, the terrible degra- 
dations of the Welsh people in the tenth century, as shewn 
by the laws of Howel Dda, and the extraordinary bartering 
of wives which appears to have prevailed in Ireland in the 
eleventh century—if we may judge by the letters of Gregory 
VIL, Lanfranc, and 8. Anselm?—cannot fail to shock the 
ἃ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, pref. p. ci. 

2 Thus 8. Anselm, Hp. 247 to Muriardach, king of Ireland: ‘‘ Dicitur enim 
quod viri ita libere et publice uxores suas uxoribus aliorum commutant, sicut 


quilibet equum equo, aut quamlibet aliam rem re alia ab illo commutat: aut 
pro libitu et sine ratione relinquunt.” 


The 
Teutonic 
peoples 
compara- 
tively pure. 


410 HOLY MATRIMONY 


student who remembers that in each case the Church had 
been at work among these populations for six or seven 
centuries at least. It would, however, be an altogether false 
view which should regard the British and Irish Churches as 
accepting for any length of time such abuses as the temporary 
marriages which were admitted under Howel Dda, or the wild 
license of the Irish kings of the eleventh century. On the 
whole the teaching of the Celtic Churches during the long 
centuries of struggle with barbaric license appears to have 
been worthy of the rest of Christendom. 

The Teutonic peoples shew no such general decline of moral 
probity in their heathen days, as we seem to trace among the 
Celts. The Roman testimonies to their purity of life are 
familiar, and S. Boniface, writing to Ethelbald, king of 
Mercia, to reprove him for his lcentiousness, reminds him 
that even the heathen Saxons viewed adultery with abhor- 
rence. “In old Saxony, if a maiden has dishonoured her 
father’s house by unchastity, or if a married woman, forsak- 
ing the tie of marriage, has committed adultery, they some- 
times compel her to put an end to her hfe with her own. 
hand by hanging herself with a rope, and on her ashes, when 
she has been set fire to and consumed, they hang her cor- 
rupter.”1 §. Boniface mentions other punishments in vogue 
among the heathen Saxons on the Continent, curious in them- 
selves, and making additionally clear the fact that the moral 
traditions of the Teutonic peoples were fairly high. The 
references made in a former section to German laws will 
have indicated some points in which they fell short of the 
Christian standard, but on the whole they do not appear to 
have ever sounded the depths of ignoble living with which 
the Celtic peoples had become only too familiar. 

The first authorities on the subject of marriage which are 
commonly cited in connexion with the Celtic Churches are 
the canons of the two so-called synods of S. Patrick. Mr. 





1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, dc., ii, p. 853: ‘Nam in antiqua Saxonia, si 
virgo paternam domum cum adulterio maculaverit, vel si mulier maritata, 
perdito fcedere matrimonii, adulterium perpetraverit, aliquando cogant eam 
propria manu per laqueum suspensam, vitam finire; et super bustum illius, 
incense et concrematz, corruptorem ejus suspendunt,” 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 411 


Haddan has shewn! that the canons of the “first synod of The 

8. Patrick” really belong to the eighth century, where they Seen 
will be noticed. The “second synod of 8S. Patrick” is not 5. Patrick. 
so certainly to be placed, but it appears to be an Irish synod, 

and one of considerable antiquity. It does not appear to be 

Ὁ. Patrick’s, as one certainly of its canons contradicts the 
“Confession.”? In the absence of decisive indications as to 

date it may be noticed here. 

This Irish synod quotes our Lord (c. 26) as saying, “It is 
not permitted to put away a wife save for the cause of forni- 
cation,’ and thereupon makes the following comment: “As 
if He should say that for that cause it is permitted, and 
accordingly if a man marry a second wife as if after the 
death of the former, they forbid it not.” 

The 28th canon implies the same concession, when it affirms 
that a first marriage is not voided by any subsequent union 
except in the case of adultery.® 

The so-called second synod of 8. Patrick therefore admits 
the remarriage of the innocent husband in the case of the Re- 
divorce of the wife for fornication. It will be remembered "ase 
that the Council of Vannes, in 465 A.D., took the same line, innocent 

husband 
and it is not unlikely that a decision ΕἸ ἢ applied to the admitted. 
British Christians of Brittany had become known to their 
brethren in Ireland. 

One of the oldest documents of the Irish Church which The 
bears upon the subject is the Penitential of Vinniaus, or Fement™! 
S. Finian. It is not easy to say with certainty to which Vinniaus. 
Finian this book should be ascribed, but Wasserschleben 
inclines to the Finian who, born in Ireland in 450 AD., 
passed some years of training, first in Gaul, and afterwards 
in Wales, and then towards the close of the fifth century 


returned to Ireland.* Ὁ. Finian lays down, following 8. Paul, 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, de. ii. p. 331, note καὶ 

2 [bid ii. p. 333, note a. 

3 Synodus Alia 5. Patricti (Mansi, tom. vi. p. 528) ; Haddan and Stubbs, 
Councils, ke. ii. Ὁ. 337. 

* Wasserschleben, Die Bussordiungen der abendlindischen Kirche, pp. 108-119. 
Schmitz, Die Bussbiicher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, pp. 498, 499, declares 
for the younger S, Finian, of Moville, who died a Ὁ. 579. 


Re- 
marriage 
disallowed. 


Canones 
Wallici. 


Adultery 
to be 
visited 
with 
death, 


Marriage 
witha 
female 
slave in- 
dissoluble. 


Gildas. 


412 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that a wife ought not to leave her husband, but that if she 
depart she ought either to remain unmarried or to be recon- 
ciled to her husband. Canon 43 is very plain. “If any 
man’s wife have committed fornication, and be living with 
another man, he ought not to marry another wife so long as 
his wife is living.” Similarly in the case of the woman. It 
is also laid down that the sterility of the woman is no ad- 
missible ground of repudiation. The testimony of 8. Finian 
on the subject of marriage after divorce is thus in entire 
accord with the traditions of the first three centuries. 

Next may be mentioned the Canones Wallict. Of these 
Mr. Haddan says: “On the whole they may be pronounced 
probably Welsh, and, if so, belong to that period (ο. 550- 
650 A.D.), during which both the Welsh Church and the 
Welsh principalities appear to have become organised.”! In 
these remarkable canons adultery is treated as a serious 
crime. “If any man, for the sake of fornication, shall have 
corrupted the wife of another, let them, being taken, die 
the death; and whosoever shall have killed them, let him 
stand in no fear of prosecution.” It is forbidden to keep 
at the same time a wife and a concubine. The 60th canon 
(Cod. Bigot.) lays down that marriage with a female slave 
has the ordinary character of Christian marriage. “If any 
man have willed to take his female slave to himself in 
marriage, and he have power over his own effects, if he 
afterwards desire to sell her it is not conceded. But if he 
determine to sell her, we ordain that he be condemned, and 
we assign the slave to the discretion of the priest.” This 
firm statement of the indissolubility of marriage, even when 
the woman was a slave, is clear proof that the Welsh Church 
was at this period thoroughly in earnest in attacking the 
peculiar faults of the Welsh social system. It should be 
read in the light of the laws of Howel Dda, promulgated 
three centuries later. 

It may be fairly doubted whether the penalty of death 
assigned by the Canones Wallici to persons guilty of adultery 
was ever operative. Jt may perhaps have obtained recognition, 


' Haddan and Stubbs, Cowncils, ὧς. i. p. 127. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 413 


so far as it provides that a private person who inflicts 

such penalty of death shall not be hable to prosecution for 
murder. It must not, however, be overlooked that the 

abuses which Gildas laments were nearly contemporaneous 

with the Canones Wallici. Those canons are assigned to the 

period 550-650 a.p., while the Epistle of Gildas was probably 

written about 547 a.p, Gildas denounces the British kings 

in general as guilty of many crimes, and among them that 

“they keep very many wives, but harlots and adulteresses,”’ 

and then proceeds to charge individual kings by name with 

various enormities.!_ Certainly it would appear that in the Licentious- 
time of Gildas the penalty of death for adultery was very tos 0! 
far from reaching the Welsh princes, and it appears little kings. 
likely that the insertion of that penalty among the Canones 
Wallici a few years later would materially change the preva- 

lent tone. But it was at least an unmistakeable expression 

of the mind of the Church that the bond of marriage was 

not to be tampered with. 

There is no very early authority on the subject of divorce 
and remarriage in connexion with the Roman mission of The 
S. Augustine (596 a.p.). It has been seen elsewhere that Ro™2" 
S. Gregory probably maintained the indissolubility of the ofS. | 
marriage. bond, and the reason why the subject does not apne 
come up in the remarkable correspondence of §S. Gregory 
with 5. Augustine, which treats of certain specified cases of 
conscience, 18 probably the entire adherence which was ac- 
corded in England to the line taken in the matter by the ouestion 
toman Church. Other questions affecting marriage, notably hie 
questions regarding affinity, do occur; but on the subject of not enter- 
divorce and remarriage no difficulty appears to have been ene 
entertained. 

Among the greatest of the early archbishops of Canterbury Theodore 
was Theodore (Abp. 668-690 a.pv.). He was born at Tarsus οἱ 19:50. 
in Cilicia in 602 A.D., and “by such training as Tarsus and 
Athens afforded, he became a sound Greek and Latin scholar, 

a philosopher, a thorough adept in secular and divine lhtera- 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Cowneils, dc. 1. p. 48, 


Council of 
Hertford 
disallowed 
re- 
marriage. 


Theodore’s 
personal 
convictions 
seen 

in the 
Penitential. 


414 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ture, and, as appears from his whole history, a man of much 
tact and varied experience.” He was nominated Archbishop 
of Canterbury in 667 A.D. At that time he was at Rome, 
being “sixty-five years old, a monk of the Eastern or Pauline 
tonsure, possibly of the rule of S. Basil, and, if in orders at 
all, not yet advanced to the sub-diaconate.”! With the first 
sixty-five years of his life thus predominantly Eastern, his 
views would naturally tend to identity with the views of the 
Eastern Churches, and we should expect to find in him the 
same strictness and the same laxity as were shewn by those 
Churches in his day. And in fact, as will presently be seen, 
the Penitential of Theodore, in which his views find least 
hampered expression, definitely admits remarriage, not only 
after divorce for adultery, but in certain other cases. The 
fact that Theodore entertained such views makes the opinions 
of the English Church, as shewn by the decrees of the Council 
of Hertford, all the more remarkable. That Council, held in 
673 AD. under the presidency of Theodore himself, ruled 
“that no man leave his wife except, as the holy Gospel 
teaches, for the cause of fornication. But if any have ex- 
pelled his own wife, united to him in lawful marriage, if he 
will to be rightly a Christian, he is not to unite himself 
with any other, but let him so abide or be reconciled to his 
own wife.”? The views of the English Church were thus 
the views of Rome and of the West generally, rather than 
the views of Theodore and of the East; and their expression 
in the acts of the Council may be taken as evidence that the 
Church of England at that time was not in the least prepared 
to forego her traditions in the matter, even in deference to 
the convictions of the greatest archbishop who had, up to 
that time, filled the primatial chair. 

The Penitential of Theodore leaves no doubt as to what 
those convictions were when they could find independent 
expression. Much has been done of late years, by Bishop 
Stubbs in England, and by Wasserschleben in Germany, to 
restore the genuine text of this valuable code of discipline, 





1 Bishop Stubbs, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, art. Theodorus (7). 
2 Haddan and Stubbs, Cowncils, &e. 111. p. 118. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 415 


and their labours have given us “what may, with the utmost 
confidence, be affirmed to be the work known during the 
early middle ages as the Penitential of Theodore.” “But 
although drawn up under the eye, and published with the 
authority, of Theodore, it is not, in the modern view, a direct 
work of the great archbishop. According to the preface, it 
is a collection of answers given by him to persons question- 
ing him.” “There is nothing to make it improbable that it 
was drawn up with the sanction of Theodore himself, or 
under his eye: rather it may be said that the verses found 
at the end of the treatise, in which Theodore commends 
himself to the prayers of Bishop Haeddi, make it certain 
that this was the case.”? 

The Penitential, then, may be regarded as the reproduction 
by another hand of Theodore’s genuine decisions. Among 
them he rules that if a wife have been unfaithful (forni- 
caveritt) her husband may dismiss her, and marry another, 
and that the guilty wife herself may, on her penitence, be 
allowed to marry another man after the lapse of five years. 
A wife is not, however, permitted to put away her husband 
for fornication on his part, “except, perhaps, for a monastery.” 
One ruling looks at first sight as if it provided a unique 
ecclesiastical sanction of the license of divorce by mutual 
consent, which was at this time still conceded by the secular 
law of the Hast. “Lawful marriage,” it runs, “may not be 
broken without the consent of both.” It is, however, ex- 
plained by. the section immediately following: “ Notwith- 
standing, either may give the other license to enter a 
monastery for the service of Gop, and may take license, in 
his or her own case, to marry again, according to the Greeks, 
provided that it was such person’s first marriage; and yet it 
is not canonical. If, however, the marriage was a second 
marriage, permission to remarry is not accorded during the 
lifetime of the husband or wife.” The two sections taken 
together, therefore, mean (1) that no married person may 
enter a monastery without the consent of the partner, but 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, de. iii. p. 173. 


A man may 
dismiss an 
adulterous 
wife and 
marry 
again. 


Case of 
one party 
entering 
the 
monastic 
life, 


A husband 
may 
restore an 
adulteress, 
but must 
do penance. 


Divorce by 
consent 

for super- 
venient 
incapacity. 


Other con- 
cessions, 


416 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(2) if that consent of the partner be given, and the monastic 
obligation assumed, the partner is at liberty to marry again, 
subject to restrictions as to trigamy. A husband convicted 
of crime, and sentenced to servitude, leaves his wife free to 
contract marriage with another man after the lapse of a year, 
provided that the former marriage was her first. A husband 
may be reconciled to an adulterous wife, and, if he choose 
to be reconciled, she belongs to him, and is not to be counted 
as freed by her adultery. A husband thus condoning adultery 
must, however, undergo penance for two years. The 12th 
section repeats the 8th as regards monastic profession, but 
couples with it the case of physical infirmity: “A man and 
a woman in the married state, if he be willing to serve Gop 
(ue. in a monastery), and she be unwilling; or she be willing, 
and he be unwilling; or he be overtaken by infirmity, or she 
the same; yet they may certainly be parted by mutual 
consent.” The ground of religious profession has already 
been recognised as a sufficient justification not only for sepa- 
ration of life, but for such entire severance of the marriage 
tie as will admit the remarriage of the partner remaining in 
the world. The other ground here brought forward—the 
eround of the physical incapacity (post-nuptial) of one of the 
parties—is evidently understood as no less justifying re- 
marriage. Indeed this particular ground of separation is not 
likely to be alleged at all except with a view to the re- 
marriage of the capable partner. Theodore, then, must be 
understood’ to admit remarriage in the case of any person 
whose partner has undertaken monastic obligations or is 
physically incapable, provided always that the divorce has 
the-consent of both. 

If a wife have deserted her husband, despising him, and will 
not return to be reconciled to him, the husband may, with the 
consent of the bishop, marry again after the lapse of five years. 
If the wife have been carried away into captivity with violence 
(per vim) and cannot be redeemed, the husband may take 
another wife after a year. (§ 20.) If she have been carried 
away into captivity (without violence, and without the im- 
possibility of redemption?) her husband is to wait for her five 


—_~ 


ἃ 
Moe ee υδϑν Ψπου τυὺν προ 





OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 417 


years; and similarly in the case of a woman, if her husband be 
carried captive. (§ 21.) Should the absent partner return, the 
second spouse is to be dismissed. (§ 22.) The 23rd and 24th 
Sections, however, decide this difficulty in the opposite sense: 
“Tf an enemy have carried off any man’s wife, and he cannot 
obtain her again, he may take another: it is better to act thus 
than to be guilty of fornication. If after this his wife return 
to him, she ought not to be received by him, if he have another 
wife; but let her take another husband for herself, if she had 
only been married once before. The same decision is of force 
in the case of slaves beyond seas.” The 

It is not easy to see how Sections 22 and 24 can be Fenitential 
reconciled. They both are concerned with the case of the altogether 
captive wife who returns to find the husband married to aoe, 
another woman. According to Section 22 the original marriage 
is to stand, and the second wife to be discarded. According to 
Section 24 the second marriage is to stand, and the returned 
wife to be held at liberty to herself contract a second marriage. 
The first of these decisions (§ 22) is the mind of the Eastern 
Church; the second (§ 24) may have been derived from 
Frankish sources. Probably the first decision, which restores 
the prior marriage, is Theodore’s; the decision of Section 24 
may have been added from some Frankish capitulary. In 
truth the Penitential, while no doubt on the whole a-fair 
reproduction of Theodore’s rulings, is a compilation which will 
not be found altogether consistent with itself. Thus in the 
case of Sections 20 and 21, which respectively assign one year 
and five years as the term of waiting for a captive wife, it is 
simpler and probably more correct to recognise two parallel 
rulings to meet the same difficulty, than to seek justifications 
of the difference in differing circumstances. The 

The long list of indulgent provisions which is found in Provisions 
Theodore’s Penitential must be unintelligible to the merely Penitential 
Western Canonist, but it is entirely explained when we recall aie * 
the fact that Theodore was a Greek. There was probably no eee 
church of Western Christendom which would have welcomed 
such provisions at the end of the seventh century, but they are 

1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, 4:6. vol. 111. pp. 188-200. 
2 Καὶ 








These 
provisions 
do not 
occur 
again in 
any autho- 
ritative 
form. 

The 
Penitential 
of Bede. 


418 


a fair expression of the feeling of the Eastern Churches. 


HOLY MATRIMONY 


This 


will be apparent from the following comparative statement. 


CASES. 


1, Adultery of wife. 


2. Unfaithfulness of 
husband. 


3. The Religious 
Life. 


4, Reconciliation of 
adulterous wife. 


5, Supervenient in- 
capacity. 


6. Desertion by wife. 


7. Captivity of wife. 
(a) with violence. 
(b) without vio- 

lence. 


8. Captivity of hus- 
band. 


THEODORE’S PENITENTIAL, 


Husband may dismiss her, 
and marry another. 

Wife may not put away 
(except perhaps for a 
monastery). 

Either may, with the con- 
sent of the other, enter 
the religious life; and the 
party left in the world 
may marry again. (Pro- 
vision against trigamy. ) 

Husband may restore an 
adulterous wife, and, if 
he do, may claim her, 
leaving her no longer free. 
Hemust undergo penance, 


If either be overtaken with 
incapacity after marriage, 
the other may marry 
again. 

Husband may marry again 
after five years, 


Husband may marry again 
after one year, 

Do. after five years. Wife 
(i.) may (ii.) may not claim 
her husband on her return, 

Wife may marry after five 
years, 





EASTERN CHURCHES SINCE 
JUSTINIAN, 


Husband may dismiss her, and 
marry another 
Wife may not put away. 


Either may, with the consent 

of the other, enter the re- 
ligious life; and the party 
left in the world may marry 
again, 


The old Roman Law punished 
reconciliation. 

The 134th Novel of Justinian 
enacted that the wife was to 
be permanently confined in a 
convent, unless the husband 
restored her within two years. 
The later Eastern Church also 
admits reconciliation. (Not 
S. Basil or the Council in 
Trulio. ) 

Incapacity, to constitute a 
ground of divorce, must have 
existed from the solemniza- 
tion. 

Husband may discard her, and 
marry again, if she live else- 
where than with her parents. 

Husband may marry after a 
time. By the old Roman 
Law the wife on her return 
may not claim him. By later 
Eastern Church Law she may. 

Wife may marry after a time, 
but must return to the hus- 
band if he appears and claims 
her. 


It is thus not difficult to account for the provisions of 


Theodore’s Penitential. 


How far the Church of England 


was for a time committed to them is a matter on which 
opinions may perhaps vary, but it is certain that these par- 
ticular provisions are not to be found again in any authori- 


tative form. 


The Penitential of Bede (before 735 A.p.), 


probably not thirty years later than the Penitential of 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 419 


Theodore, and in many respects a mere revision of it, is 
incomplete indeed; but in its incomplete form it knows 
nothing of Theodore’s provisions with regard to divorce. 
The Penitential of Egbert, Archbishop of York, which is The _ 
ascribed by Bishop Stubbs to some date between 732 A.D. fe pepert, 
and 766 A.D., is also largely based on Theodore’s Penitential, 
while entirely free from these particular provisions. 

The Dialogue of Egbert (between 732 and 766 A.D.) consists The 
of a number of cases put as questions, with the Archbishop’s Speer 
replies. Perhaps the whole history of the Church could 
supply no more remarkable instance of perplexity between Remark- 
conflicting authorities than is to be found in the Archbishop’s Paes 
answer to the 13th question. The question deals with one 0p super 
of the points on which Theodore had shewn himself in- incapacity. 
dulgent. It was asked, “If a lawful marriage be dissolved 
by consent of both parties on account of the infirmity ” (we. 
post-nuptial incapacity for conjugal intercourse) “of the man 
or woman, is it lawful for the sound party, being incontinent, 
to marry, the impotent party giving consent, and promising 
to live in perpetual continency?” It is remarkable that the 
point thus raised is not only one of the points on which 
Theodore had taken the laxer line, but it is precisely that 
one point upon which the Roman see, in the person of 
Gregory II., had given a pronouncement in the same sense 
as Theodore, and that in the interval between Theodore and 
Egbert (716 A.p.). The Archbishop’s answer may be repeated 
at length: “No one acts against the Gospel or the Apostle 
without punishment, therefore we give no consent to adul- 
; terers. Yet we lay burdens on no man which cannot be 
borne without danger, but confidently enjoin the command- 
ments of GOD; but we reserve him unpunished for the just 
judgment of Gop whose infirmity hinders him from fulfilling 
them. Therefore, lest we should seem to connive at adul- 
terers, or that the devil, who deceives adulterers, should 
rejoice over adulterers, hear further, ‘That which Gop hath 
joined let no man separate, and also, ‘He that is able to 
receive it let him receive it, for necessity often breaks a 


law by reason of the change of times. For what did David 
282 








The 
Judicium 
Glementis, 


420 , HOLY MATRIMONY 


do when he was hungry? and yet’ he was. without sin; 
therefore sentence is not to be given in doubtful- points. 
But there is a necessity of risking counsels for the salva: 
tion of others, upon this express condition, that it be by 
no means allowed to one that hath vowed continency to 
contract a second marriage while the former partner lives.”? 
Read in the light of the history of the subject which is 
before us this halting answer seems to mean, “This license 
of remarriage is certainly opposed to the Divine law, and it 
is as certainly conceded by the great Archbishop Theodore 
and by Pope Gregory II. With the concessions of these 
ereat authorities before them, the people will naturally ex- 
pect similar concessions from other prelates generally, yet 
how can they be made? It must certainly be rendered 
quite clear that the remarriage is against the Divine law, 
but having regard to Theodore’s ruling and the answer of 
the Pope, we will not actually forbid remarriage; and if the 
man do in fact remarry we will assign no punishment, but 
‘reserve him unpunished for the just judgment of Gop whose 
infirmity hinders him from fulfiling Gop’s commandments.’ ” 

The attitude recalls the attitude of S. Basil in the fourth 
century. Happily in England the facility of particular prelates 
in the matter of divorce and remarriage left no very serious 
impression, and the Dialogue of Hybert is the last important 
document of the English Church? which is untrue to the 
teaching of Holy Scripture and of Catholic antiquity. 

Very noticeable, in connexion with the passing shadow 
thrown by Theodore on the marriage discipline of the Church 
of England, is the fragmentary document known as the 
Judiwiuvm Clementis. Kunstmann identifies the writer with 
the Anglo-Saxon Clement, that is, Wilibrord; and if this 
identification be correct, the document is a fragment of the 
Penitential of the great English apostle, who took to the 
Frisian people the zeal, the faith, and the discipline of the 
English Church. The date under which Bishop Stubbs places 
it is 693 A.D., a date immediately touching the episcopate of 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, dc. iii. p. 409. 
2 But not of the British Church. See the laws of Howel Dda. 


a ¢ 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 421 


Theodore, who died in 690 A.D. It may be said therefore that 

at the same time that the Eastern prelate was giving to 
England a Penitential which represented the Eastern discipline, 

the English prelate was giving. to the Netherlands a Penitential 

which probably represented no less accurately the English 
discipline. Clement rules that “if any man dismiss his lawful Re- 
wife, and marry another, he is to be excommunicated by ™2r8° 
Christians, even if his former wife consent.” Again, he lays maps 
down that “separation is not permitted in the case of lawful een 
marriage, unless both consent. with a view to remaining un- 
married.” He has, however, one provision which is found 

among Theodore’s Canons, and which is perhaps rather German 

and Anglo-Saxon than Eastern: “If the enemy have forcibly re- 
carried off any man’s wife, and he have been unable to rescue peel 
her, he may, after the lapse of a whole year, marry another capture 
woman, and if the former wife return (subsequently) she may ee 
marry another man.”! It will be remembered that Theodore’s 
Penitential contains not only this ruling, but also one in 

direct contradiction to it. 

The Canons of ὃ. Adamnan, who was Abbot of the celebrated canons 
monastery of Hy or Iona from 679 ap. to 704 Α.Ὁ., may next 5. 
be mentioned. Their date will fall somewhere within this 
period of 8. Adamnan’s authority, and they will therefore be 
all but contemporary with the Penitential of Theodore. S%. 
Adamnan was born in Ireland, resided for the greater part of 
his mature life at Iona, on the border of the Picts and Scots, 
and was also in intimate connexion with that Northumbrian 
Church which, Celtic in its origin, had in 8. Adamnan’s time 
accepted the ordinary Western usage as regards Easter and the 
tonsure. He must therefore be held to have been intimately 
acquainted with the Celtic Churches of his day. He rules as με. 
regards divorce that a husband whose wife has been unfaithful mee 
is not to marry again during her lifetime. Marriage therefore divorce dis- 
with §. Adamnan, as with S. Finian, is indissoluble. The “°ve* 
reason which he assigns is a remarkable one, when it is 
remembered that under the influence of Abbot Ceolfrid of 
Jarrow §. Adamnan had come to advocate the ordinary 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, dec. 111, Ὁ. 227. 


Reference 
to 
Theodore. 


The 
Venerable 
Bede. 


Re- 
marriage 
disallowed. 


S.Patrick.” 


422 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Western rather than the Celtic usage as to Easter and the 
tonsure. He says the man is not to remarry during his wife's 
lifetime, “because we do not know whether that authority 
which we have read in the questions of the Romans was 
supported by adequate or by false witnesses.”! Here surely 
we have the echo of what was going on in England. On the 
one hand the traditions of the churches of these islands, 
whether Celtic, as expressed by 8S. Finian, or Anglo-Roman, 
following the traditions of the Roman See, were asserting 
themselves, as in the Council of. Hertford, to the maintenance 
of the indissoluble character of Christian marriage. On the 
other hand were the lax pronouncements of Theodore, who, 
obviously Eastern in the light of our wider acquaintance with 
history, was to 8. Adamnan simply the foremost representative 
of the Roman mission. The words of 8. Adamnan look as if 


he had before him the Penitential of Theodore, and as if, 


notwithstanding his large-hearted willingness to find points of 
union where he could, he felt altogether unable in this matter 
to follow the lead of the great archbishop. 

Early in the eighth century the Venerable Bede was writing 
his valuable Commentaries. Commenting on Ὁ. Mark x., he 
says that a wife may be put away only for one carnal cause— 
fornication, and only for one spiritual cause—the fear of Gop. 
He goes on to say, “ But no cause is written in the law of Gop, 
on account of which another wife may be married during the 
lifetime of her who has been deserted.”? This great saint and 
teacher of the English Church thus simply reverts to the 
primitive view, brushing aside Theodore’s indulgences without 
comment. 

The so-called first synod of 8. Patrick may next be noticed. 
According to the heading prefixed to its canons this synod con- 
sisted of three bishops—S. Patrick, Auxilius, and Isserninus ; 
and it has consequently been usual to assign the canons to the 
fifth century. Mr. Haddan, however, points out that they 
“must obviously be placed at a period when there was a settled 
Church in Ireland, yet while heathenism still ruled in parts of 





sy Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abendlindischen Kirche, p. 117. 
2 Ven. Bede in S. Mark x. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 230.) 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 493 


the country; when the Britons and the Irish had become 
estranged, sczl. by the adoption of Roman customs by the 

latter (north as well as south), while the former retained the 

Celtic ones, ze. at least after A.D. 716, but before A.D. 777 or 

809; and lastly, when the Church had existed long enough in 
Ireland for a custom to arise and to have become antiquus. 

The first years of the eighth century are the earliest possible 

date that can be assigned to the collection as a whole.” In 

point of time, therefore, the canons known as the canons of 

the first Synod of 8. Patrick probably come just after Theodore 

and S. Adamnan, and are about contemporary with the Adulteress 
Venerable Bede. One of these canons is as follows: “Α 298 ἐπα. 
Christian woman, having accepted a man in honourable mar- nicated. 
riage, and afterwards departed from her first husband, and 

joined herself in adultery, for having so done must be cast out 

of communion.” No other cases of remarriage after divorce 

are mentioned.! 

The laws of Howel Dda, or Howel the Good, are assigned by paws of 
Haddan and Stubbs to about a.p. 928.2. These remarkable laws a 
touch the lowest point ever reached by Christian legislation in 
the matter of marriage. It cannot be said of them that they 
are purely secular in their character. According to the narra- 
tive of the Brut y Tywysogion, Howel was accompanied in his 
journey to Rome by three bishops, Martin of Menevia, Mordat 
of Bangor, and Marchlwys of Teilaw, and also by a celebrated 
doctor of both civil and canon law, named Blegywrydd. The 
object of their journey was “to consult the wise in what 
manner to improve the laws of Wales, and to ascertain the 
laws of other countries and cities, and the laws in force in 
Britain during the sovereignty of the Emperors of Rome.” The » 
result was that, “after searching what was procured from every 
country, the laws of Dyonwal Moelmud were found to be the 
best.” These laws, codified by the doctor Blegywrydd, were 
submitted to an assembly of clergy and laity representing all 
Wales, which was held under Kine Howel’s presidency at 
Whitland, in Carmarthenshire, about the year 928 Aap. By 


1 Haddon and Stubbs, Councils, de. ii. p. 329. 
2 Ibid, i, 211. 


Pro- 
bationary 
marriages. 


Regula- 
tions for 
divorce. 


494 HOLY MATRIMONY 


this assembly the laws so codified “ were expounded, improved, 
and augmented; and after the laws had passed the judgment 
and verdict of the country in the assembly, they were authorized 
and made legal in all the country of Wales.” On a second visit 
to Rome we are told that Howel “ascertained those laws to be 
in accordance with the law of Gop, and the laws of countries 
and cities in the receipt of faith and baptism.” The laws have 
not survived in the original form, but have come down to us in 
three revisions, corresponding with the three great divisions of 
Wales, viz., Gwynedd (Venedotia), Dyved (Dimetia), and 
Gwent. The extracts given above are from these twelfth and 
thirteenth century revisions. They disclose a condition of 
social morals happily unique in Christendom. For seven years 
a wife appears to have lived with her husband on a footing of 
mutual probation. At the end of that time they could separate 
without blame. Either could leave the other at any time 
during the continuance of the seven years, but if the woman 
so left her husband she was to forfeit most of her belongings, 
except in certain specified cases. After separation the persons 
were not held to be bound to one another by any bond. “If 
the husband take another wife after he shall have parted from 
the first wife, the first is free.” Similarly the woman might 
accept another husband if she were put away, and a curious 
regulation lays down the exact point up to which the repentant 
husband might return and claim her, it being evidently implied 
that when that point was passed the woman became the wife 
of the second husband, and ceased to be claimable by the first. 
Just as under the Roman secular law the power of divorce 
seems to have been recognised as not in the long run subject 
to legislative control, while at the same time objectionable 
forms of divorce were subjected to various penalties and dis- 
abilities, so in this Welsh code some separations are right and 
legal ; and sometimes a “man deserts his wife unlawfully,” but 
even when this is the case the divorce stands good in law. The 
regulations in this latter case are curious. “The rejected wife 


~ is to remain in her house until the end of the ninth day, and 


then if she be suffered to depart entirely from her husband 
everything belonging to her is to go, in the first place, out of 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 495 


the house, and then she is to go last out of the house after all 
her property; after that, on bringing the other into the house, 
he is to give dilysdawd to the first wife, because no man by 
law is to have two wives.” 

It is to be feared that the laws of Howel the Good repre- 
sent only too faithfully the actual morals of the Welsh people 
in the tenth century, and they leave the further impression 
that the Church of the day was prepared to sanction the 
license they disclose. 

A document in Anglo-Saxon, entitled the Laws of the Nor- 
thumbrian Priests, and assigned by Johnson to A.D, 950, as Laws of 
probably belonging to the Danish reign of Anlaf, in canon Se North 
35 anathematises a priest who should dismiss one wife and Priests. 
take another; and in canon 54 lays down, “If any man A priest 

: : 5 : : : ταν who 
dismiss his lawful wife [while she is] living, and marry divorces, 
another, let him want Gop’s mercy unless he make satis-2n¢ 
faction.” ἢ again. 

The Anglo-Saxon Penitential called by Johnson Archbishop 
Dunstan's Penitential, and assigned to A.D. 963, says: “ He Archbishop 
that relinquisheth his wife and taketh another woman pumstans 
breaketh wedlock.”? No exception is made. 

In the Laws celesiastical and Canons of EHanham, promul- Laws 
gated by S. Alphege between Ἀπ 1006 and ap. 1013, it is Ὁ οιοεῖθο: 


tical and 


laid down, “Never let it be that a Christian marry . . . to Canons of 
4 ; : ; Eanham. 

one that is divorced. Nor let him who desires to observe 

Gop’s law aright, and to guard himself against hell-fire, have 


more wives than one, but continue with her only so long as Laws 


: : Ecclesi- 
she lives.”? The same law re-appears in the Laws ecle- astical of 
stastical of Cnute (A.D. 1017).4 Cnute. 


From this time onwards it is hardly necessary to multiply From the 
authorities as to the teaching and practice of the English ake 
Church. With the Norman Conquest came the traditions of no further 


the Norman Church and the continental systems of Canon ἐν eee 
Law. The century following the Norman Conquest saw the Pris 
codification of the Canon Law by Gratian (4.p. 1139), and 
the law school founded by Vacarius at Oxford, about A.D. 


1 Johnson’s English Canons, ed. Bacon, i. p. 380. 2 Ibid. i. Ὁ. 483. 
3 Ibid. i. pp. 484-5, 4 Ibid. i. p. 506. 


The 
Reforma- 
tion period. 


The 
Reformatio 
Legum 
Ecclesiasti- 
carum. 


Various 
formu- 
laries. 


426 HOLY MATRIMONY 


1158, would not be slow in commending the Deeretwm of 
Gratian to the English Church! It may be said that from 
the time of the Norman Conquest there has never been any 
serious contention in England that the law of the English 
Church embodied any recognition of divorce a vineulo, 
properly so-called, or of remarriage after such divorce. 

The period of the Reformation stirred up opinions in this 
as in other matters, and some of the more prominent English 
reformers in this, as in other matters, appear to have been 
satisfied to follow the lead of the reformers of Germany and 
Switzerland. The important collection of proposed canons 
known as the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, by which it 
was intended to replace the ancient canon law of England, 
was exceedingly lax on the subject of divorce. Not only 
adultery, but desertion, continued absence, murderous enmity 
in the case of either party, and also cruelty in the case of 
the husband, were held to justify divorce ὦ vinewlo, and to 
leave the parties free to marry again.2 Happily for England 
the Leformatio never became law, and is therefore only a 
historical curiosity. The formularies issued with any authority 
in the early Reformation period are clear enough in the re- 
ceived sense. The Lnstitution of a Christian Man, published 
in A.D. 1537, teaches that “in marriages lawfully made, and 
according to the ordinance of matrimony prescribed by Gop 
and holy Church, the bond thereof can by no means be dis- 
solved during the lives of the parties.’”? 

The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition, the date of which is 
A.D, 1545, repeats this teaching “with one significant variation.” 
Instead of “Gop and holy Church,” it is now “Gop and the 
Laws of every realm.”* 

The Lorm for the Solemnization of Matrimony as set forth in 
the Prayer-book of 1549, and as modified in the later Prayer- 


1 The Canon Law was always jealously watched in England where it came 
into conflict with civil prerogatives or with valued features of the Common Law, 
but its marriage provisions appear to have been admitted without challenge. 

2 Reformatio Legum Ececlesiasticarum, ed. 1640, p. 49. 

3 Keble, Sequel to the Argument, dc. p. 202, quoting Formularies of 
Faith, de. Oxford, 1825, p. 91. 

4 Ibid. p. 276. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 427 


books, gives no uncertain sound as to the indissolubility of the 
Christian matrimony. The questions of the betrothal enquire, pea 
“Wilt thou... forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her Prayer. 
(him) so long as ye both shall live?” The only solvent of the 

bond is death. The plighting of the troth is “till death us do 

part, according to Gop’s holy ordinance.” The joining of the 
hands is with the words, “Those whom Gop hath joined 
together let not man put asunder.’ The collect before the 
blessing recites that Gop did “teach that it should never be 
lawful to put asunder those whom Thou by matrimony hadst 
made one.” There is nowhere any exception or hint of 
exception. 

Till the passing of the Divorce Act in 1857 the law of the 
realm had no quarrel with the law of the Church in the matter 
of divorce and remarriage. It is true that between the 
Reformation and the passing of the Divorce Act a considerable Divorce 
number of cases occurred in which Parliament was found Dead 
willing to pass a special Act to dissolve a particular marriage, πες 
and to legitimate a second marriage during the lifetime of the 
divorced partner. There is no instance of any such Act 
having received the sanction of the Church in Convocation or 
otherwise, and such measures therefore hardly call for much 
comment in the present work. They are chiefly remarkable 
as having in every case emphasized the fact that, till the 
passing of the Divorce Act, the law of England, binding upon 
every subject till it was altered, maintained the principle of the 
indissolubility of the marriage bond. A few extracts from the 
later canonists and ecclesiastical lawyers, in which the same 
principle is laid down, will be found above. 

The word divorce is in frequent use by the English courts Divorce 
and lawyers to indicate separation a mensa et thoro; and it is othe. 
also sometimes loosely applied to a declaration of nullity of 
marriage, where for any reason the marriage has been void 


1 In Phillimore’s Burn (Title, marriage) the earlier cases referred to are those 
of the Marquis of Northampton (a.p. 1551), Lord Ross, afterwards Earl of 
Rutland, Mr. Lukenor, the Earl of Macclesfield (A.p. 1697), and the Duke of 
Norfolk (A.D. 1700). In the interval between a.p. 1715 and A.D. 1857 such 
Acts became very frequent. 


428 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ab initio. But it was uniformly held that where a marriage 
had once been real, it was also indissoluble as to the vincwlwm. 
Thus Ayliffe: “Where the incapacity arises from any matter 
precedent to the marriage, there the marriage is only de facto ; 
and a sentence of divorce in such eases is only declaratory that 
the marriage is dissolved; for it was absolutely void before, 
and either of the parties might marry again though the other 
was living. But ’tis otherwise when the divorce is occasioned 
ex causa subsequentt, as in cases of adultery, cruelty, and the 
like. For there, the marriage being once good, it can never be 
dissolved a vinculo; because such subsequent cause cannot 
affect the bond of matrimony, though it 15 sufficient to separate 
the parties a mensa et thoro.”} 

These two classes of cases; viz. (1) declarations of nullity, 
and (2) cases of separation of life or divorce a mensa et thoro, 
have always been admitted by the English Ecclesiastical Law 
as by the Canon Law of Western Christendom generally. 
Perhaps the most important in practice of the recognised 
erounds for declarations of nullity are (1) those relation- 
ships which render marriage between the parties related 
sinful, and therefore inadmissible from the first, and (2) 
those physical defects which make a consummated marriage 
impossible. In such cases there is no question of divorce 
properly so called, since where marriage is inadmissible or 
impossible the vinculwm of marriage can never begin to be, 
and can never therefore be dissolved. It is not strictly 
correct even to speak of annulling such marriages, since the 
word annulling seems to imply that before the annulling 
such unions were not null. The only expression which is 
free from misleading associations is perhaps that of “declara- 
tion of nullity,” which accurately describes a process familiar 
to the ecclesiastical courts, by which persons who have con- 
tracted illegal or impossible marriages can, by a judicial pro- 
nouncement, more readily obtain freedom from the various 
consequences which might ensue if, for want of proof to the 
contrary, they should pass as bound by such apparent 
marriages. The other so-called divorce of the English eccle- 


1 Ayliite, Parergon, Title, Of Divorce. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 499 


siastical law is the divorce a mensa et thoro, which sanctions 
separation of life in cases of unfaithfulness. It has been 
seen that the evidence of Holy Scripture and of the whole 
tradition of Christianity is in favour of the rightfulness of 
such permission to separate. 

It is thus the fact that for at least eight centuries prior 
to the Divorce Act of 1857 the law of England, which in 
this matter was the Canon Law of Western Christendom, 
knew nothing of the dissolubility of a marriage bond which 
had once been established. The Divorce Act sanctioned the 
entire dissolution of the bond in the case of the adultery 
of the wife, and also in the case of the adultery of the 
husband, when coupled with any one of certain specified 
offences. The result is that, so far as the secular law of 
England is concerned, persons divorced under the Act are at 
full liberty to marry again, and this no less in the case of the 
ouilty than in that of the innocent partner. It is even per- 
mitted to the guilty partner to marry the paramour. Various 
laws of divorce, more or less similar, are in force in the 
various colonies and dependencies of the British Empire, in 
the United States of America, and in foreign countries where 
the Anglican Church is represented. It need, however, hardly 
be repeated that none of the acts of the various local legis- 
latures have altered the laws of the Church of Gop. So far 
as those laws are of Divine requirement, the Church has no 
power to alter them in consideration of the acts of any human 
legislature. So far as they are of mere human expediency, it 
would of course be competent to the Church to alter them. 
But in the case of the Church of England no revision of her 
marriage laws has ever been made during the thirty years 
which have elapsed since the passing of the Divorce Act, 
except on such a minor point as that of the hours of solemni- 
zation; and so far as the great principles of marriage are 
concerned, the law of the English Church necessarily remains 
exactly what it was. 

The complications which arise from the conflict of secular 
and religious laws have been, as might be anticipated from the 
nature of the case, of frequent occurrence. They have formed 


No 
dissolution 
of the 
bond prior 
to the 
Divorce 
Act of 1857. 


Provisions 
of the 
Divorce 
Act. 


Conflict 

of the laws 
secular and 
the laws 
religious. 


The 
Lambeth 
Conference 
of 1888, 


Divorce 
only for 
adultery. 


Guilty 
party not 
to remarry, 


Clergy 
not to be 
instructed 
to refuse 
the Sacra- 
ments to 
the 
innocent 
party. 


430 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the subject of consideration at many Church assembles of 
various degrees of authority during the last few years, It is 
perhaps unnecessary to cite the conclusions of any of these 
assemblies, with the sole exception of the most important of 
them, viz., the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1888. That 
Conference was not indeed a Council, and did not set forth its 
resolutions as authoritative; but there is no representation of 
the Anglican Church to which more weight will be universally 
accorded. The Conference adopted three of the conclusions of 
the committee appointed to consider the subject, happily re- 
jecting a fourth, which was in many ways unsatisfactory. The 
first of the accepted resolutions clears the ground by declining 
to recognise divorce in any case, except that of fornication or 
adultery. The second rules “that under no circumstances 
ought the guilty party, in the case of a divorce for fornication 
or adultery, to be regarded, during the lifetime of the innocent 
party, as a fit recipient of the blessing of the Church on mar- 
riage.’ In the third, “recognising the fact that there always 
has been a difference of opinion in the Church on the question 
whether our Lord meant to forbid marriage to the innocent 
party in a divorce for adultery, the Conference recommends 
that the clergy should not be instructed to refuse the Sacra- 
ments, or other privileges of the Church, to those who, under 
civil sanction, are thus married.” 

The Conference is thus careful not to accord definite sanction 
to any case of remarriage after divorce, just as the formularies 
of the Church are clear in barring all such remarriage. If, 
however, the innocent party has “under civil sanction ” married 
again, the clergy are not to be instructed to refuse to him “the 
Sacraments or other privileges of the Church.” It is matter of 
thankfulness that by the first resolution, which excludes a 
large number of cases of divorce sanctioned by various secular 
legislatures, the Conference has distinctly recognised that in a 
matter of Divine law secular legislatures must be disregarded. 

It should be remembered that it is not claimed for the 
resolutions of the Conference that they have any directly 
operative power in over-riding the Canons or other pronounce- 


1 Report of the Lambeth Conference of 1888. 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 431 


ments of the particular Churches. There can, however, be no 
doubt that the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference are by 
far the most important utterance on the subject which the 
Anglican Church has delivered for centuries. 

The testimony of the Churches of these islands is now summary 
before us. It may be divided into three sections, (1) the erie 
period before the Norman Conquest, (2) the period from the of the 
Norman Conquest to the passing of the Divorce Act in 1857, pats 
and (3) the period since 1857. 

(1) In the period before the Norman Conquest there is some (1) Before 
diversity of view. In the Irish Church the ancient synod, ἴῃ κῃ 
perhaps of the fifth or sixth century, which is commonly Conquest. 
spoken of as the second Synod of 8. Patrick, admits remarriage 
after divorce. On the other hand the Penitential of 8. Finian 
holds the marriage bond to be indissoluble. In the British 
Church of Wales the Canones Wallici assign the penalty of 
death to persons guilty of adultery, and nowhere admit 
marriage after divorce in any case. At the same time, how- 
ever, the letter of Gildas presents an almost incredibly low 
type of actual morals in the courts of the Welsh princes; and 
three centuries later, in the laws of Howel the Good, which 
mark the lowest point reached by Christian marriage legislation, 
marriages were ordinarily by temporary contract, and were in 
practice dissoluble at any time by the will of either partner. 

In the Scotch Church the teaching of 5. Adamnan is clear for 
the indissolubility of the marriage bond, notwithstanding the 
echoes of different opinion which had reached him from 
England. In the English Church 8. Augustine and _ his 
companions and followers may be assumed to have accepted 
the teaching of the Roman See, and to have known nothing of 
remarriage after divorce; but Theodore’s Penitential admits a 
laxity of practice, not only in cases of adultery, but in other 
cases, which is only explained when shown to be practically 
identical with the contemporary teaching of the Eastern 
churches in which Theodore had been bred. Notwithstanding 
the views of the Penitential, which are presumably the views 
of Theodore, the Council of the whole English Church, which 
was held at Hertford under Theodore’s own presidency, had 


(2) From 
the 
Conquest 
till 1857. 


(3) From 
1857. 


432 HOLY MATRIMONY 


stood fast to the indissolubility of the marriage bond. The 
Penitential of Bede does not follow Theodore in his lax 
provisions affecting marriage, and Bede in his Commentary on 
S. Mark maintains that marriage is indissoluble. The Dialogue 
of Egbert has a halting utterance, as’ between conflicting 
authorities. The Judicowm Clementis, supposed to be the work 
of 5. Willibrord, is strict except in the case οἵ a wife's 
captivity, when the husband is permitted to remarry. 38. 
Alphege and Cnute in their Laws Ecclesiastical forbid the 
remarriage of the divorced wife. On the whole it must be 
said that the churches of these islands before the Norman 
Conquest give an uncertain sound: It is perhaps neither a 
time nor a scene in which to expeet consistency. The clash of 
fierce tribes, the mingling of Christian and heathen, the low 
tone of a nominal Christianity, have all to be reckoned with. 
Nor were the Christian teachers themselves all of a kindred 
mind. Among the prelates who sought to guide the unruly 
elements about them were Celtic bishops, Irish, Welsh, and 
Scotch, all too httle influenced by the rest of Christendom ; 
S. Augustine and his fellows with the full traditions of the 
Roman See; Theodore breathing the learning and the excessive 
indulgence of the East; Felix from Burgundy; Agilbert from 
Gaul. It would have been indeed a marvel had there been 
consistency. It is perhaps a marvel that the strict primitive 
rule of marriage and divorce made itself heard at all. It 
would be heard; it was never silenced; and it prevailed. 

(2) From the Norman Conquest to the Divorce Act of 1857 . 
the English law of marriage and divorce was the Canon Law of 
Western Christendom. The bond of marriage once established 
was indissoluble, save by death. 

(5) From the Divorce Act of 1857 the secular law of 
England has not been in harmony with the law of the Church. 
A similar condition of contrast has arisen in most of the 
English Colonies and Dependencies, and in the various States 
of the American Union. 

III. Reason. 

We may now enquire whether to the testimony of Holy 

Scripture and of the Church in History any addition of value 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 433 


can be made by an appeal to the faculty of reason. In this 
sphere much has been written, but the present writer proposes 
to touch upon only two points of enquiry. Of these the first 
may be thus stated, What has reason to say to the contention 
that the act of adultery ipso facto dissolves the bond of mar- 
riage? The second enquiry is this, If it be granted that the 
culty partner is so bound that remarriage after divorce would 
on his or her part be adultery, how is it possible that the 
innocent party can be free to remarry ? 

G.) It has been contended by many that where adultery has 
found place there is no longer a marriage bond to sever, inas- 
much as the act of adultery has ipso facto severed the essential, 
if not the legal, bond. The contention is not without its 
attractiveness. In the first place, unlike the Roman Law, it 
admits that there is in the marriage union a certain mysterious 
bond, over and above the contract of the law. When adultery 
supervenes it is claimed that in the sin itself is to be found a 
mysterious ἐνεργεία, Which severs the marriage bond, and so 
renders possible a release from the terribly strained relations 
which ensue. 

If for the sake of argument the contention is admitted, to 
what does it lead? Let a case be supposed. A wife, having 
committed an act of adultery, is now no longer bound to her 
husband by the marriage tie. She continues her relations with 
the adulterer under the style of marriage, and as she is free 
from her former bond she may be admitted to be again a wife. 
She tires of her new union, and returns to her first husband. 
Before she is received by him she is the wife of the sometime 
adulterer. Her return to her first husband zpso facto severs her 
marriage with the sometime adulterer, and she now continues 
to live with the first husband as his wife. All three marriages 
appear to be on the same footing. Hach has its bond. This by 
the hypothesis is not merely the legal contract, but a mysterious 
tie, which is of the essence of the union. Putting aside then 
the legal contracts, what goes to make any one of these mar- 
riages, appears to be the copula, accompanying the consent of 
the two parties to a present union dissoluble at will, In other 
words any sexual union, at least where there is mutual consent, 

2 ἢ 


Two 
points of 
enquiry. 


Does the 
act of 
adultery 
ipso facto 
dissolve 
the bond ? 


If the 
guilty 
party is 
bound, how 
can the 
innoc-nt 

be free? 


434. HOLY MATRIMONY 


is a marriage. And this appears to be the meaning of those 
who support this contention. There is, they affirm, in the 
sexual union a mysterious bond. Under certain circumstances 
it is styled marriage; under certain other circumstances it is 
spoken of as the taking of the members of Christ and the 
making them the members of a harlot. But the bond is 
practically the same. It is created in and by the copula, and 
may be held to be in force till it is severed by a copula with 
another person, which, in the act of severing the first bond, 
creates a new bond in its place. If this be the meaning of 
the argument with which we are dealing, we are now outside 
the limits of Christian enquiry, and the subject need no further 
be noticed. Secular systems of social philosophy may recognise 
such principles; Christianity cannot. 

The second enquiry asks, If it be granted that the guilty 
partner is so bound that remarriage after divorce would on his 
or her part be adultery, how is it possible that the innocent 
partner can be free to remarry? In the Anglican communion 
at the present day there is probably a strong preponderance of 
opinion in favour of the view that the guilty partner is so 
bound that remarriage after divorce would on his or her part 
be adultery. There is probably no equally prevalent conviction 
as to the adulterous character of remarriage on the part of the 
innocent partner. Now if the guilty partner is so bound that 
remarriage on his part is adultery, why is he so bound? 
Adultery, as Tertullian pointed out to the Christians of the 
second century, is “a crime incident to the marriage state.” 
It implies a bond between two, which binds both. If it be 
so severed that either is not bound, then both must be free. 
If it be so in force that either is bound, then both must be 
bound. 

After the long historical investigation which has been 
pursued in this treatise, it can hardly be matter of surprise 
that opinion tends to be more pronounced with regard to the 
adulterous character of remarriage in the case of the guilty 
partner than it is with regard to its adulterous character in the 
case of the innocent partner. The Church in history has been 
more often found condoning the remarriage of the innocent 


Wi « 


* ρωωλιομονυ». —- 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 435 


than that of the guilty. But while history might thus be 
adduced with some reason to support a difference of discipline 
in the matter of remarriage, there still remain to be met the 
inexorable demands of the laws of thought. Is the marriage 
bond a bond between two? Can it exist at all if both are not 
bound? If both are bound, how can either be free? How 
can a second union in the one be adultery, while in the other 
it is Christian marriage ? 

This method of approaching the question has hardly received 
in the Anglican communion all the consideration which it 
deserves. The matter is indeed of such moment that it may 
rightly be demanded of those who venture to pronounce a 
judgment upon it that they shall give adequate consideration 
to all the evidence which Holy Scripture and Christian history 
can afford; but it may no less be demanded of them that, 
before a decision is resolved upon, they shall face the logical 
difficulty also, and be prepared either to show its fallacy or 
to accept its conclusion, 

The entire evidence as to the indissoluble character of the 
bond of Christian matrimony may now be summarised. 

In Holy Scripture the commonly-accepted reading of 
S. Matthew xix. 9 appears to countenance divorce with re- 
marriage in the case of adultery, but an examination of the 
original documentary authorities shews that there are such 
widely different readings of the verse that it cannot be 
relied upon to support any argument, and also that there 
is great probability that the original reading does not con- 
template remarriage at all. It is remarkable that none of 
the writers of the first three centuries quote the passage 
as having any bearing on the question of remarriage. If 
S. Matthew xix. 9 does not contemplate remarriage after 
divorce, it cannot be said that any other passage in the New 
Testament necessarily does so. 

Passing on to the evidence of the Church in history, the 
first three centuries afford no single instance of a writer who 
approves remarriage after divorce in any case during the lhfe- 
time of the separated partner, while there are repeated and 


most decided assertions of the principle that such marriages 
2F 2 


Summary 
of the 
entire 
evidence 
as to indis- 
solubility. 


436 HOLY MATRIMONY 


are unlawful. On the other hand, Tertullian and Origen both 
make mention of Christians who had availed themselves of 
the facility of the secular law to contract new marriages, and 
Origen says that the persons to whom he refers were per- 
mitted to marry by certain governors of the Church. In 
the period from Constantine to Justinian, the Churches of the 
West are more decided in their prohibition of remarriage 
than the Churches of the East. In the West the Council 
of Arles and the African Code, with ὃ. Ambrose, 8. Jerome, 
and S. Augustine, decline to admit remarriage after a divorce 
for adultery even in the case of the unoffending husband. 
On the other hand Lactantius and Ambrosiaster admit re- 
marriage after a divorce for adultery. In the East S. Basil 
does not approve of remarriage in any case, but is not pre- 
pared to visit such remarriage with harsh discipline in the 
case of the man. S. Epiphanius and 5. Asterius admit re- 
marriage. ὃ. Gregory Nazianzen is uncertain, 8. Timothy of 
Alexandria oracular, Theodoret contradictory. 8. Chrysostom 
is against remarriage. Speaking generally, this period from 
Constantine to Justinian shews the Western Churches main- 
taining the entire indissolubility of Christian marriage, while 
the Churches of the East give an uncertain sound. 

From the time of Justinian the Churches of the East 
concede, without difficulty, the right of remarriage after 
divorce to the innocent husband, though not to the guilty 
wife. Remarriage is also allowed after divorce for many 
other causes assigned. In the West, from the time of 
Justinian, the Churches of Italy appear to have maintained 
the indissolubility of Christian marriage, while beyond the 
Alps there are traces of a long and difficult struggle with 
the license of the secular laws and the lax customs of the 
peoples. From the time of Gratian, however, the indissolu- 
bility of Christian marriage was universally acknowledged in 
the West. As regards the Churches of the British Isles, 
there was, before the Norman Conquest, some diversity of 
view, but from the Norman Conquest onwards the indissolu- 
bility of Christian marriage has been accepted. 

Finally, as regards the permission of remarriage sometimes 


OF THE INDISSOLUBILITY OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE 437 


accorded to the innocent party while the remarriage of the 
guilty party is accounted adultery, the laws of reason may 
require it to be explained how, when the bond necessarily 
binds two, one can be bound and the other free. 

The chapter may be brought to a close with a statement 
of the practical conclusions which the writer ventures to 
deduce from it. 


CONCLUSIONS. 


— 


. The bond (vinculum) of Christian marriage is indissoluble 
except by death. 


bo 


. A husband may put away his wife for adultery, but neither 

party may remarry. 

3. A husband is bound to put away lis wife for her adultery, if 
the adultery continue ; otherwise he rs guilty of connivance 
of adultery, and of the confusio prolis. 

4. A wife may put away her husband for adultery, but neither 

party may remarry. 


en 


. A wife is not bound to put away her husband, even if the 
adultery continue. 

6. A husband may restore an adulterous wife on her penitence 
and amendment. 

7. A husband may not restore an adulterous wife while her 
adultery continues. 

8. A wife may receive again an adulterous husband, whether he 

be penitent, or continue wn his sin. 


Intro- 
ductory 
Statement. 


ΘΕ ΒΕ ΕΣ ΘΟ 


OF THE REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS, 
AND OF MIXED MARRIAGES 


T will have been noticed that in treating of the divorce of 

baptized persons united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony, 
instances of divorce, where either or both of the parties were 
non-Christians, were usually avoided. The principles which 
were arrived at in the chapters dealing with marriage outside 
Christianity will sufficiently indicate the reason; and before 
proceeding to a systematic examination of authorities, it may 
be well to state here what those principles seem to involve. 

After the Fall Gop was pleased to suffer even the chosen 
people so far to stray from the purity of marriage as Divinely 
instituted, that they were in the habit of practising both 
divorce and polygamy without incurring either denunciation or 
penalty; and the lceense which was assumed by the chosen 
people was, speaking generally, as largely assumed by the rest 
of mankind. It was the marriage of persons in the state of 
sin who, even if they maintained an union at once indissoluble 
and exclusively faithful, were yet incapable of the holiness of 
the marriage union, as it was possible either in the innocence 
of Paradise or in the redeemed life of the members of Christ.! 
The attitude of the Christian Church towards the marriages of 
persons outside her bounds would naturally follow the attitude 
of Gop towards the marriages of the chosen people. Their 


1 Cf. S. Augustine, De conjugiis adulterinis, I. cap. 18: ‘‘Infidelis hominis 
fornicatio est major in corde ; nec vera ejus pudicitia cum conjuge dici potest, 
quia Omne quod non est ea fide, peccatum est.” 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 439 


unions are what they are because, so far as they go without 
corruption, they are the survivals of the Divine institution of 
marriage. Hence they are in all possible ways to be respected. 
If persons so united will be mutually faithful till death sever 
the tie, it is a great gain. When all is said of the corruption 
of the Fall, there is so much of the original institution in 
such marriages that their continuance wherever possible is 
to be sought, notwithstanding the fact that sin has thrown 
the Divine institution woefully out of gear. But the high 
conditions of Christian matrimony are not to be rigidly 
imposed upon those non-Christians who decline to accept 
them. 

If they will sever their unions by divorce, or mar the 
character of them by polygamy, the Church has no more 
condemnation for such persons than Gop had for those who 
acted similarly among the chosen people. They do not well, 
but yet they are not to be judged by a standard which is not 
theirs. Consequently, in the case of two persons who were 
married outside the Christian Church, and afterwards divorced 
in accordance with the conditions of their marriage, the Church 
has not commonly maintained that such persons must be held 
as bound indissolubly by the tie which they have repudiated ; 
and if either of these persons has at a later period sought 
baptism after contracting another union, it has not usually 
been contended that the convert was under any obligation to 
repudiate the actual non-Christian partner in favour of the 
partner who had preceded. It was, however, impossible to 
overlook the fact that when one of two non-Christian partners 
was converted and baptized, while the other remained un- 
baptized, a very real difficulty occurred. If, on the one hand, 
respecting the existing wnitas carnis and all which it might 
still retain of the primal marriage blessing, the Christian 
partner desired and was permitted to continue the bond, there 
at once arose an inequality of relationship which, under the 
ordinary circumstances of Christian marriage, would constitute 
sufficient ground for a declaration of nullity. To justify the 
Christian partner in continuing the union, it was necessary 
that from the moment of baptism he or she should accept the 


ἐφ, 


440 HOLY MATRIMONY 


union as being for himself or herself Christian or Holy 
Matrimony. The copula after baptism was for the Christian 
partner either fornication involving a fall from grace, or it 
was the consummation of Christian marriage, with all that it 
implied; of marriage, that is to say, which involved at once 
indissolubility and exclusive faithfulness. Meanwhile, how- 
ever, the non-Christian partner was no more bound than he 
had been before. Divorce was always admittedly before him 
as a possibility under the Roman law. In Eastern lands he 
was not more debarred from the practice of polygamy; and in 
any case, whatsoever the particular laws or customs of his 
community might or might not allow, he was not a member of 
Christ, and was not to be judged, even by the Church of Christ, 
as though he were bound by the requirements of such member- 
ship. The Christian was bound as the non-Christian was not, 
the contract was not fairly mutual, and in the case of the 
marriage of two Christian persons, where the contract was thus 
one-sided, the whole tenor of Christian discipline would have 
pronounced the marriage null and void. Thus considered, it is 
not difficult to decide that unequal marriages between Christians 
and non-Christians are inadmissible in all cases where the 
unequal condition exists prior to the proposed marriage; and, 
as will be seen, this is the teaching of Holy Scripture and of 
Church authority, notwithstanding the occurrence and partial 
recognition of many instances of such marriage. The case of 
the Christian convert, however, is one of much more difficulty. 
It is certainly a case of unequal contract, and if the Christian 
partner, In view of this inequality and of the many difficulties 
of the union, elected to claim a divorce, and to marry another 
and a Christian partner, the formal difficulty arising from the 
unequal relations was certainly removed; but with it went all 
that was sacred in the earlier union, which had its mystery, 
and which, but for this severance, might have been life-long 
and entirely faithful. Here was a difficulty which called for 
authoritative solution, and the Corinthians appear to have 
addressed 8. Paul with regard to it. 5. Paul’s decision, if the 
usual explanation of it be accepted, meets the dilemma by 
indicating that in the case of Christian converts there may be 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 441 


expected a special grace of Gop, to sanctify their unions to 
them as being, so far as concerns not only themselves but their 
children, blessed with the full blessing of Christian marriage. 
There is indeed no indissoluble bond, and if the unbeliever 
break the bond, it is broken; yet, seeing that there was a 
sacredness about the former union, and: that God has specially 
met the case of the Christian convert, such convert should 
maintain the former marriage if he can. We may now consider 
S. Paul’s statement more at length as the first of the Scriptural 
authorities. 


1. Hoty SCRIPTURE. 


G.) 1 Corinthians vii. 12-16 : 


Tots δὲ λοιποῖς ἐγὼ λέγω, οὐχ ὁ Κύριος, 
5) 3 \ ‘Fe 2 Fla \ 
εἴ Tis ἀδελφὸς γυναῖκα ἔχει ἄπιστον, Kal 
αὐτὴ συνευδοκεῖ οἰκεῖν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, μὴ 
ἀφιέτω αὐτὴν᾽ καὶ γυνὴ ἥτις ἔχει ἄνδρα 
ἄπιστον, καὶ αὐτὸς συνευδοκεῖ οἰκεῖν μετ᾽ 
ἡγίασται γὰρ 
ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικὶ, καὶ 


> a \ > / > f 
αὐτῆς, μὴ ἀφιέτω αὐτὸν. 


ἡγίασται ἢ γυνὴ ἡ ἄπιστος ἐν τῷ ἀνδρί" 
ἐπεὶ ἄρα τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτά ἐστι, 
νῦν δὲ ἅγιά ἐστιν. Hi ὁὲ ὃ ἄπιστος 
χωρίζεται, χωριζέσθω. 
ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἡ ἀδελφὴ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις" ἐν 
τί γὰρ 
οἷδας, γύναι, εἰ τὸν ἄνδρα σώσεις ; ἢ τί 


οὐ δεδούλωται ὁ 
δὲ εἰρήνῃ κέκληκεν ἡμᾶς ὁ Θεύς-. 


7 


οἶδας, ἄνερ, εἰ τὴν γυναῖκα σώσεις ; 


But to the rest speak I, not the 
Lord: If any brother hath a wife that 
believeth not, and she be pleased to 
dwell with him, let him not put her 
away. And the woman which hath an 
husband that believeth not, and if he 
be pleased to dwell with her, let her 
not leave him. For the unbelieving 
husband is sanctified by the wife, and 
the unbelieving wife is sanctified by 
the husband : else were your children 
unclean ; but now are they holy. But 
if the unbelieving depart, let him de- 
part. A brother or a sister is not 
under bondage in such cases: but Gop 
hath called us to peace. For what 
knowest thou, O wife, whether thou 
shalt save thy husband? or how 
knowest thou, O man, whether thou 
shalt save thy wife ? 


There are two words in this passage which call for special 
comment—the words dedovAwrar and χωρίζεται (χωριζέσθω). 


a. δεδούλωται. 


If the unbelieving χωρίζεται, depart or be the cause of 
separation, a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such 
cases. It is quite clear that in S. Paul’s view the believer is 
not under bondage in such a ease to live with the unbeliever, 
who is the cause of the severance. But is the believer, 


449 HOLY MATRIMONY 


notwithstanding, under bondage to remain unmarried? The 
following points may help to a decision: 


(a) The interpretation which regards δεδούλωται as Meaning 
“not bound” to insist on cohabitation is so obvious a 
truism, and so inadequate an answer to difficulties 
which must have been actual, that it must be rejected 
as insufficient. The alternative meaning is “not 
bound” by the marriage bond. 


(8) “The contrast between δοῦλος with its cognates and 
ἐλεύθερος with its cognates is of very frequent 
occurrence in the New Testament. I reckon that 
there are at least twenty-one passages where it 
occurs, of which’ fifteen are in ὃ. Paul’s Epistles.” 
This seems to confirm the idea that οὐ δεδούλωται is 
equivalent to ἐλεύθερος ἐστιν; and then we quote, in 
illustration of the Apostle’s meaning, verse 39 of this 
very chapter : 

Γυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ᾧ) ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς" ἐὰν 
δὲ κοιμηθῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι, 
μόνον ἐν Κυρίῳ. 

“The freedom spoken of in both verses is a freedom to 
MeN ey Tae ΠῚ} 

(y) The instruction to a wife united in Christian marriage is 
explicit in its prohibition of remarriage: “ But and if 
she depart, let her remain unmarried.” (v. 11.) The 
instruction to a convert forsaken by the non-Christian 
partner is, “ Let him depart. A brother or a sister is 
not under bondage in such cases.” These two in- 
structions, only four verses apart, have the air of a 
contrast. The ordinary Christian wife, who is separ- 
ated from her husband, is not free to marry again ; 
the deserted convert is free to marry again. 


(6) The vast preponderance of Christian authority has under- 
stood ov δεδούλωται to mean “is not bound” by the 
bond of marriage. 3 


1 In the Occasional Papers of the Oxford Mission to Caleutta. 
* See authorities to be presently cited. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 443 


(e) The principles at which we have arrived point to the 
same conclusion. The marriage never has been yet 
Christian matrimony, and cannot bind the partner 
who is becoming a Christian more than the partner 
who remains an unbeliever. Indissolubility probably 
formed no part of the contract. Certainly there 
has been as yet no membership in the body of 
Christ, imposing the obligations of Christian mar- 
riage on elther partner. If the unbeliever may 
effect a divorce, what is open to the unbeliever is 
no less open to the partner about to become a 
Christian. There is no indissoluble bond. 


It is concluded that the convert in the case specified by 
S. Paul “is not bound,” in the sense that he or she is free to 
marry again, 

b. χωρίζεται, χωριζέσθω. 


This word is rendered in the English versions depart, and 
in the Vulgate discedat. 


A. V. ‘But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. 
to alle Yet if the unbelieving departeth, let him depart. 
Vulgate. Quod si infidelis discedit, discedat. 


The Greek commentators, however, do not confine the word 
to this meaning of departure. 8S. Chrysostom, explaining the 
passage, writes: “But what does that mean ?—E? δὲ ὁ ἄπιστος 
χωρίζεται. For instance, if he command thee to sacrifice, and 
to communicate with him in impiety by reason of the marriage, 
or Gif he command thee) to retire, it is better that the mar- 
riage rather than that piety should be torn asunder.” 

S. Chrysostom evidently takes the word χωρίζεται as a 
causative middle: “If the unbeliever is the cause of separa- 
tion, let him be the cause of separation” must be the trans- 
lation required by 8S. Chrysostom’s explanation. Similarly 
Theophylact—*“ Ev δὲ ὁ daictos χωρίζεται, χωριζέσθω. AS 
if he command thee either to partake with him in unbelief, 
or to recede from the marriage, then let the marriage be 


1 Homily xix. on 1 Cor. in loco. 


444 HOLY MATRIMONY 


receded from. For it is better that the marriage rather than 
that piety should be dissolved.”4 Theophylact has probably 
derived his inspiration here from Ὁ. Chrysostom; but both 
writers are accomplished masters of the Greek language, and 
both are agreed in understanding χωριζέσθαι as meaning to 
cause to separate rather than merely to depart. 

The point is a most important one in practice. Thus a 
Musulman husband, whose wife was a convert to Christianity, 
might not choose to depart from her, but might prefer to 
retain her under a home tyranny which should simply allow 
no scope for the exercise of her faith. In such a case, accord- 
ing to ὃ. Chrysostom, the husband is the cause of separation, 
which thereupon becomes thoroughly justified, the wife being 
no longer bound. ‘The interpretation of S. Chrysostom seems 
preferable to that of the Vulgate and of the English versions, 
which only authorise separation when the unbeliever departs. 
It is not only the (1) explanation which commends itself as 
the obvious meaning of the Greek to commentators whose 
native language was Greek, and (2) an explanation which the 
Greek certainly covers without any straining; but (3) is 
entirely in accordance with the dictates of common sense 
working from the principles we have thought to discern. The 
marriage outside Christianity had no indissoluble vineulum, 
but was nevertheless to be guarded, and by continuance after 
baptism hallowed, if this were at all reasonably possible. 
Failing such reasonable possibility, it must fall to the ground. 

We are now in a position to understand 8. Paul’s instruc- 
tion. The convert is instructed not to put away an unbe- 
heving partner who is not the cause of separation. If such 
an unbelieving partner συνευδοκεῖ οἰκεῖν, not merely is “ willing 
to abide,” but rather is “in hearty agreement to abide,” then 
the marriage is perfectly permissible to the Christian partner. 
If, however, the unbeliever is the cause of separation, whether 
by desertion or by such other causes as those which 5. Chry- 
sostom indicates, then the Christian partner is not bound; 
that is to say, he or she is free to marry again. 


1 On 1 Cor. in loco. 


“~~ 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 445 


It should not be overlooked that this instruction of S. Paul, 
the “ Pauline privilege” (pravilegiwm Paulinum), as it has been 
commonly called, is a tremendous concession. But the con- 
cession would appear to lie, not so much in the permission 
given in certain cases to dissolve a union which never had 
the character of indissolubility, as in the permission given 
to the Christian partner to remain united to the unbelieving 
partner under necessarily unequal conditions. ὃ. Paul there- 
fore proceeds to explain how the grace of Gop makes this 
possible. “The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, 
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else 
were your children unclean, but now are they holy.” Not, 
of course, that the union sanctifies the unbelieving husband 
as baptism would sanctify him, by giving him a holiness in 
his own being, but that he is sanctified fo the wife for the use 
of marriage by her own membership in Christ, so that to her 
the union is no unequal union of a member of Christ with 
heathen pollution, but has the full character of Christian 
matrimony. Consequently, again, as the union had for her 
the full character of Christian matrimony, so also the children 
were before GoD not unclean, as being the children of a polluted 
and unworthy association, but they were holy, that is to say, 
they had a certain blessedness and predisposition to holiness 
even before Baptism. “The generation of the faithful shall be 
blessed,”! with a blessedness given to them, no doubt, as the 
generation of the faithful. In short, Christians were to under- 
stand that, abnormal as such unions undoubtedly were, the 
preservation of all that was sacred in the first tie was so dear 
to Gop, that He would rather supply a special grace of 
sanctification to overcome the difficulties of the union, than 
that it should be dissolved in favour of some new connexion, 
which, while it might have formal regularity, would only have 
it at the expense of severing the prior tie. 

It is not, however, to be inferred from this permission to 
maintain an existing union under circumstances of grave 
inequality, that it could ever be right for a Christian to enter 


Le eh eh ae 


446 HOLY MATRIMONY 


upon such an unequal union after baptism. Even between two 
Christians a marriage in which one declined to accept in- 
dissolubility or monogamy would be no marriage: a fortiorr 
would this be the case where one of the parties was a non- 
Christian; and even if the non-Christian were prepared to 
undertake these two obligations of Christian matrimony, he 
could not supply the sanctified character of the union which 
could only come in the ordinary course from the two-fold 
membership in the body of Christ. Nor, under the circum- 
stances, could the Christian partner reasonably expect to be 
supplied with that extraordinary and special grace of Gop 
which was vouchsafed to the convert continuing a prior union, 
in order to sanctify that union to himself and to his children. 


Gi.) 1 Corinthians vu. 39: 

Γυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ζῇ The wife is bound by the law as 
ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς ἐὰν δὲ κοιμηθῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ long as her husband liveth; but if her 
αὐτῆς, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι" husband be dead, she is at liberty to 


μόνον ἐν Kupiy., be married to whom she will; only in 
the Lord. 


The expression “in the Lord” has been commonly understood 
to be equivalent to “with a Christian.”! The statement that a 
widow is “at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in 
the Lord,” is as much as to say that she is not at liberty to 
marry except “in the Lord.’ The verse thus amounts to an 
express prohibition of mixed marriages. So Tertullian: “ But 
of marrying in the Lord, when he says, only in the Lord, he 
is now not persuading, but expressly commanding.”? 


(111.) 2 Corinthians vi. 14—vii. 1: 


Μὴ γίνεσθε ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ἀπίστοις" τίς Be ye not unequally yoked together 
γὰρ μετοχὴ δικαιοσύνῃ Kat ἀνομίᾳ; ris with unbelievers: for what fellowship 
de κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος; τίς δὲ hath righteousness with unrighteous- 


* Tertullian, 4d Uxorem, lib. ii. c. 2: ““1ὰ est, in nomine Domini, quod est 
indubitate, Christiano.” Theodoret in loco: μόνον ἐν κυρίῳ, τοὐτέστιν ὁμοπίστῳ. 
S. Jerome, ad Ageruchiam: “‘Quodque addidit, tantum in Domino, amputat 
Ethnicorum conjugia.” Yet 5, Augustine says in the De Conjugiis Adulterinis, 
i, 25, ‘Quod duobus modis accipi potest: aut Christiana permanens, aut 
Christiano nubens”; and S. Chrysostom, in loco, μετὰ σωφροσύνης, μετὰ 
κοσμιότητος. 

3 Tertullian, Ad Uxorem, ii. 1. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND 


συμφώνησις Χριστῷ πρὸς Βελίαλ ; ἢ τίς 
μερὶς πιστῷ μετὰ ἀπίστου; τίς δὲ συγκα- 
τάθεσις vax Θεοῦ μετὰ εἰδώλων ; ὑμεῖς 
γὰρ ναὸς Θεοῦ ἐστε ζῶντος, καθὼς εἶπεν 
ὁ Θεὸς, Ὅτι ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἐμ- 
περιπατήσω, καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῶν Θεός, καὶ 
αὐτοὶ ἔσονταί μοι λαός. διὸ ἐξέλθετε ἐκ 
μέσου αὐτῶν καὶ 


ἀφορίσθητε, λέγει 


Κύριος, καὶ ἀκαθάρτου μὴ ἅπτεσθε" 
κἀγὼ εἰσδέξομαι ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἔσομαι ὑμῖν 

3 ΑἹ ς A \ 3 « δ 
εἰς πατέρα, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐσεσθέ μοι εἰς υἱοὺς 
καὶ θυγατέρας, λέγει Κύριος παντοκράτωρ. 
ταύτας οὗν ἔχοντες τὰς ἐπαγγελίας, ἀγα- 
πητοὶ, καθαρίσωμεν ἐαυτοὺς ἀπὸ παντὸς 
μολυσμοῦ σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος, ἐπιτελ- 


οῦντες ἁγιωσύνην ἐν φόβῳ Θεοῦ, 


MIXED MARRIAGES 447 


ness? and what communion hath light 
with darkness? and what concord 
hath Christ with Belial? or what 
part hath he that believeth with an . 
infidel ? and what agreement hath the 
temple of Gop with idols? for ye are 
the temple of the living Gop; as 
Gop hath said, I will dwell in them, 
and walk in them: and I will be their 
Gop, and they shall be my people. 
Wherefore come out from among them, 
and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and 
touch not the unclean thing; and I 
will receive you, and will be a Father 
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 


Having therefore these promises, dearly 

beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from 

all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 

perfecting holiness in the fear of Gop. 

This passage is important or not in the present connexion, 
according as it is taken to have special reference to mixed 
marriages (and other sexual connexions) between Christians 
and heathens, or to apply generally to all unhallowed communi- 
cations between them. If the intention is general, while, no 
doubt, mixed marriages would be included under it, the value 
of the passage as a direct prohibition of such marriages 
becomes small. If, on the other hand, marriage is the sole or 
chief matter in the mind of the writer, the prohibition of 
mixed marriages must be taken as of a definite and binding 
character. The context hardly helps to a conclusion on this 
point. Stanley remarks: “We now arrive at a remarkable 
dislocation of the argument. On the one hand the passionate 
appeal to the Corinthians, which was begun in vi. 11-13, is 
continued without even the appearance of an interruption in 
vil. 2... . On the other hand, the intervening passage—vi. 14- 
vu. 1—whilst it coheres perfectly with itself, has not the 
slightest connexion with the immediate context either before 
or after.” Most modern commentators treat the passage as 
referring to all unhallowed communications between Christians 


1 Stanley, The Epistles of 5. Paul to the Corinthians, 1855, vol. ii. p. 128. 


448 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and non-Christians. On the other hand, there is much to be 
said for the view that this remarkably disconnected passage 1s 
directed solely or mainly against mixed marriages. The 
following points may be noticed: 

(1) ἑτεροζυγοῦντες, “heterogeneously yoked.” The word, 
which does not occur elsewhere, is evidently formed from 
ἑτερόζυγος in the Septuagint Version of Lev. xix. 19, “Thou 
shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind.” Stanley 
remarks: “Hence the verb must mean (not ‘to be unevenly 
yoked, one bearing the yoke more heavily than the other, but) 
‘to be joined with a wrong yoke-fellow, as ὁμοζυγεῖν is ‘to be 
joined with a right yoke-fellow. The form of the word 
indicates that the chief, though not the only, allusion is to 
marriage.” ἢ 

(2) The argument that Christians are themselves the temple 
of Gop is used by S. Paul in 1 Cor. vi. 19, to emphasize the 
necessity of purity in sexual relations. It is, therefore, entirely 
suitable to the subject of mixed marriages. 

It may be said of the teaching of the New Testament on the 
subject of mixed marriages, that while a special provision is 
made for the case of a convert continuing a prior connexion, 
there is nothing to warrant the view that a Christian is at 
liberty to enter upon a new relation of marriage with one who 
is not a Christian. The very explanation of the concession 
made in the one case, that the non-Christian partner “is 
sanctified” by the Christian partner, is a strong argument 
against the possibility of the concession in the other case. 
Such sanctification is clearly necessary to make marriage pro- 
perly Christian marriage for the Christian partner; and it is 
not to be reasonably supposed that a Christian who deliberately 
marries one who is not a member of Christ will be supplied 
with any such power of sanctification. This being so a specific 
prohibition of such marriages might well be looked for; and in 
the passage 1 Cor. vil. 39 such a prohibition is almost certainly 
found. It is probable, but not certain, that the same prohibition 
is to be understood in the passage 2 Cor. vi. 14—-vii. 1. 


+ Stanley, in loco 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 449 


II. THE CHURCH IN HISTORY. 
A. To the Conversion of Constantine (314 A.D.). 
AUTHORITIES. 


ἸΝΒΟΒΙΡΤΙΟΝ AT ΜΈΒΕΒΘΑ, IN THE TuNISIAN ΠΙΒΤΕΙΟΤ. 


PESCENNIA QUODVULTDEUS 
H.M. F. BONIS NATALIBUS 
NATA MATRONALITER 
NVPER VXOR CASTA 
MATER PIA GENVIT FILIOS 
Pie ΠΊΕ ΘΕ tie Vv EXT 
ANNIS XXX. VICTORINA 
VIXIT ANNIS VII 
SVNNIVS VIXIT ANNIS 
III MARCVS VIXIT 
ANNIS II. MARCEL 
ΤΥ ΥΙΧΙΤ ΑΝΝΟῚ 
FORTVNATA VIXIT ANNIS 
XIII M. VIII MARCELLVS 
ROC  - CIV 
SED ET FILIIS ET 
FILIABUS NOSTRIS ME VI 
VO MEMORIAM FECI 
OMNIBVS ESSE PEREMNEM 


TERTULLIAN. 
Ad Uxorem, lib. ii. 6. 1.3 

De nubendo vero in Domino, cum dicit: tantwm in Domino, jam 
non suadet, sed exserte jubet. Igitur in ista maxime specie, nisi 
obsequimur, periclitamur, quia suasum impune quid negligas, quam 
jussum, quod illud de consilio veniat et voluntati proponatur, hoc 
autem de potestate descendat et necessitate obligetur, illic libertas, 
hic contumacia delinquere videatur. 


ΤΠ 2. 

Igitur cum quaedam istis diebus nuptias suas de Ecclesia tolleret, 
id est, gentili conjungeretur, idque ab aliis retro factum recordarer, 
miratus aut ipsarum petulantiam aut consiliariorum praevarica- 
tionem, quod nulla scriptura ejus facti licentiam profert. Numquid, 





1 Maffei, Museum Veronense, p. 464, No. 6. 
2 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1290. 
3 Ibid, tom. 11, pp. 1291-2. 


tee Ce 


450 HOLY MATRIMONY 


inquam, de illo capitulo sibi blandiuntur primae ad Corinthios, ubi 
scriptum est: Si quis frater infidelem habet uxorem, et ula matri- 
monio consentit, ne dimittat eam; similiter mulier fidelis, infidelr 
nupta, si consentaneum maritum experitur, ne dimiserit eum ; sanctifi- 
catur enim infidelis vir a fideli uxore et infidelis uxor a fideli marito ; 
caeterum immundi essent ἢ vestr?. Hane monitionem fors de 
fidelibus junctis simpliciter intelligendo putent etiam infidelibus 
nubere licere. Gui ita interpretatur, absit ut sciens se circum- 
scribat. 

Caeterum manifestum est scripturam istam eos fideles designare, 
qui in matrimonio gentili inventi a Dei gratia fuerint, secundum 
verba ipsa: δὲ quis, inquit, jidelis uxorem habet infidelem. Non 
dicit, “‘uxorem ducit infidelem.” Ostendit jam in matrimonio 
agentem mulieris infidelis, mox gratia Dei conversum, perseverare 
eum uxore debere, scilicet properea, ne quis fidem consecutus putaret 
sibi devertendem esse ab aliena jam et extranea quodammodo foemina. 
Adeo et rationem subjicit, in pace nos voeari a Domino, et posse 
infidelem a fideli per usum matrimonii luerifieri. Ipsa etiam 
clausula hoc ita intelliigendum esse confirmat, wt quisque, ait, vocatur, 
a Domino ita perseveret. Vocantur autem gentiles, opinor, non 
fideles. 

Quod si de fideli ante matrimonium pronuntiasset absolute, per- 
miserat sanctis vulgo nubere; si vero permiserat, nunquam tam 
diversam atque contrariam permissui suo pronuntiationem subdidisset, 
dicens, Mulzer defuncto viro libera est: cui vult nubat, tantum in 
Domino. Hie certe nihil retractandum est; nam de quo retractari 
potuisset, Apostolus cecinit: ne quod ait, cui velit nubat, male 
uteremur, adjecit, tantum tn Domino, id est in nomine Domini, 
quod est indubitate, christiano. le igitur Apostolus sanctus, 
qui viduas et innuptas integritati perseverare mavult, qui nos ad 
exemplum sui hortatur, nullam aliam formam repetundarum nup- 
tiarum nisi in Domino praescribit, huic soli conditioni continentiae 
detrimenta concedit: Tantum, inquit, ἐπι Domino. Adjecit pondus 
legi su tantum. Quo sono et modo enuntiaveris dictum istud, 
onerosum est; et Jubet, et suadet, et praecipit, et hortatur, et rogat, 
et comnunatur ; districta expedita sententia est et ipsa sui brevitate 
facunda. Sic solet divina vox, ut statim intelligas, statim observes. 
Quis enim non intelligere possit pericula multa et vulnera fidei in 
hujusmodi nuptiis, quas prohibet, Apostolum providisse, et primo 
quidem carnis sanctae in carne gentili inquinamentum praecavisse. 


i Dts 


i i i) i a al 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 451 


Hoe loco dicet aliquis: Quid ergo refert inter eum qui in Matri- 
monio gentilis a Domino allegitur, et olim, id est, ante nuptias 
fidelem, ut non proinde carni suae caveant, cum alter a nuptiis 
infidelis arceatur, alter in lis perseverare Jubeatur? Cur si a gentili 
inquinamur, non ille disjungitur, quemadmodum iste non obligatur ? 
Respondebo: Si spiritus dederit, ante omnia allegans Dominum 
magis ratum habere matrimonium non contrahi, quam omnino 
disjungi: denique divortium prohibet, nisi stupri causa, conti- 
nentiam vero commendat. Habet igitur ille perseverandi necessi- 
tatem, hic porro etiam non nubendi potestatem. Tune si secundum 
Scripturam qui in matrimonio gentili a fide deprehenduntur, prop- 
terea non inquinantur, quia cum ipsis alii quoque sanctificantur : 
sine dubio isti, qui ante nuptias sanctificati sunt, si extraneae carni 
commisceantur, sanctificare eam non possunt, In qua non sunt 
deprehensi. Dei autem gratia illud sanctificat quod invenit. Ita 
quod sanctificari non potuit immundum est; quod immundum est 
cum sancto non habet partem, nisi ut de suo inquinet et occidat. 
Haec cum ita sint, fideles gentilum matrimonia subeuntes stupri 
reos esse constat et arcendos ab omni communicatione fraternitatis, 
ex litteris Apostoli dicentis, cwm ejusmodi nec cibum sumendum. 
Aut numquid tabulas nuptiales de illo apud tribunal Domini pro- 
feremus? et matrimonium rite contractum allegabimus? quod vetuit 
ipse, non adulterium est? quod prohibitum est, non stuprum est? 
Extranei hominis admissio minus templum Dei violat, minus 
membra Christi cum membris adulterae commiscet? Quod sciam, 
non sumus nostri, sed pretio empti; et quali pretio? sanguine Dei, 
Laedentes igitur carnem istam, eum laedimus. De proximo quid sibi 
voluit ille qui dixit, delictum quidem esse extraneo nubere, sed 
minimum, cum alias, seposita carnis injuria ad Dominum pertinentis, 
omne delictum voluntarium in Domino grande sit. Quanto enim 
potestas vitandi fuit, tanto contumaciae crimine oneratur. Recen- 
seamus nunc caetera pericula et vulnera, ut dixi, fidei ab Apostolo 
provisa, non carni tantum, verum etiam ipsi spiritui molestissima. 
Quis enim dubitet obliterari quotidie fidem commercio infideli? 
Bonos corrumpunt mores confabulationes malae; quanto magis 
convictus et individuus usus? Quaevis mulier fidelis Dominum 
observet necesse est. Et quomodo potest duobus dominis deservire, 
Domino et marito, adde, gentili? Gentilem enim observando 
gentilia exhibebit, formam, exstructionem, munditias saeculares, 
blanditias turpiores, ipsa etiam matrimonii secreta maculosa; non 

2G 2 


452 HOLY MATRIMONY 


ut penes sanctos officia sexus cum honore ipsius necessitatis tanquam 
sub oculis Dei modeste et moderate transiguntur. 


De Corona, ὁ. xiii? 

Coronant et nuptiae sponsos, ideo non nubamus ethnicis, ne nos ad 
idololatriam usque deducant, a qua apud illos nuptiae incipiunt ; 
habes legem a Patriarchis quidem, habes apostolum in Domino nubere 
jubentem. 

Against Marcion, lib. v. cap. 7.3 

Certe praescribens, Tantwm in Domino esse nubendum,; ne qui 
fidelis ethnicum matrimonium contrahat, legem tuetur Creatoris, 
allophylorum nuptias ubique prohibentis. 


De Monogamia, ο. 7.° 

Omnes enim nos fratres sumus: et illa nuptura in Domino habet 
nubere, id est, non ethnico, sed fratri; quia et vetus lex adimit 
conjugium allophylorum, 

S. CYPRIAN. 
De Lapsis vi.4 

Iungere cum infidelibus vinculum matrimonil, prostituere gentilibus 

membra Christi. 
Adversus Judaeos, lib. ili. ὁ. 62.° 
Cap. 62. Matrimonium cum gentilibus non jungendum. 


Apud Tobiam: “‘Uxorem accipe ex semine parentum tuorum, et 
noli sumere alienam mulierem quae non est ex tribu parentum 
tuorum,.” Item in Genesi: ‘‘ Mittit puerum suum Abraham, ut de 
semine suo accipiat Rebeccam filio ejus Isaac.” Item in Esdra satis 
non fuit Deo, cum vastarentur Judaei, nisi alienigenas uxores cum 
filiis quoque quos ex illis procreaverant reliquissent. Item in Epistola 
Pauli ad Corinthios prima: “ Mulier vincta est quamdiu vivit vir 
ejus. Si autem dormierit, liberata est, ut cui vult nubat, tantum in 
Domino. Felicior autem erit, si sic permanserit.” Et iterum: 
“‘Nescitis quoniam corpora vestra membra Christi sunt? Auferens 
membra Christi, faciam membra fornicariae? Absit. Aut nescitis 
quia qui conglutinantur fornicariae unum corpus sunt? Erunt enim 
duo in una carne. Qui autem se conjunxerit Domino, unus spiritus 
est.” Item ad Corinthios secunda: “ Nolite conjungi cum infidelibus. 
Quae autem participatio est justitiae et iniquitati? aut quae est com- 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 97. 
2 Jbid. p. 487. 3 Ibid. p. 938. 4 Ibid. p. 483. § Ibid. p. 798. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 453 


municatio luci ad tenebras.” Item de Salomone in Basilion tertio: 
“Kt averterunt uxores alienigenae cor ejus post deos suos.” 


S. Hippoytvs. 
Refutatio ix, 12.4 
\ 5 

2 Καὶ γὰρ καὶ γυναιξὶν ἐπέτρεψεν, εἰ ἄνανδροι εἶεν καὶ ἡλικίᾳ γε 
» ΄ Tal 
ἐκκαίοιντο ἀναξίᾳ, ἢ ἑαυτῶν ἀξίαν μὴ βούλοιντο καθαιρεῖν διὰ τὸ 

γ' “ Ε ἐ 5) 
νομίμως γαμηθῆναι, ἔχειν ἕνα ov ἂν αἱρήσωνται σύγκοιτον, εἴτε οἰκέτην, 
ΕΣ A) “nw 
εἴτε ἐλεύθερον, καὶ τοῦτον κρίνειν ἀντὶ ἀνδρὸς μὴ νόμῳ γεγαμημένην. 
"BR θ ” > eC \ / > / , Ν 

νθεν ἤρξαντο ἐπιχειρεῖν πισταὶ λεγόμεναι ἀτοκίοις φαρμάκοις καὶ 
περιδεσμεῖσθαι πρὸς τὸ τὰ συλλαμβανόμενα καταβάλλειν, διὰ τὸ μήτε 
> ὃ λ ἤν θ 3 7 ᾿ς > > “~ ὃ Ν \ 4 
ex δούλου βούλεσθαι ἔχειν τέκνον μήτε ἐξ εὐτελοῦς, διὰ τὴν συγγένειαν 
καὶ ὑπέρογκον οὐσίαν. “Ὁρᾶτε εἰς ὅσην ἀσέβειαν ἐχώρησεν δ᾽ ἄνομος 
μοιχείαν καὶ φόνον ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ διδάσκων. 


CouNcIL oF ELIBERIS.? 
Canon 10. 


Si ea quam catechumenus reliquit, duxerit maritum, potest ad 
fontem lavacri admitti. Hoc et circa foeminas catechumenas erit 
observandum. Quod si fuerit fidelis, quae ducitur, ab eo qui uxorem 
inculpatam reliquit, et cum scierit illum habere uxorem, quam sine 
causa reliquit ; placuit, huic nec in finem dandam esse communionem. 

[Posterior hujus canonis pars sic legitur in codice quodam mem- 
branaceo. | 

Quod si ducitur ab eo qui inculpatam reliquit uxorem, et eum 
scierit habere uxorem, quam sine causa reliquit; placuit, nec in 
fine hujus dari communionem. 4 


Canon 11. 


Intra quinquennii autem tempora, catechumena si graviter fuerit 
‘infirmata, dandum ei baptismum placuit, non denegari. 


Canon 15. 


Propter copiam puellarum, Gentilibus minime in matrimonium 
dandae sunt virgines Christianae, ne aetas in flore tumens in 
adulterio animae resolvatur. 


1 Ed. Duncker, p. 460. 

2 Von Dollinger reads: Kal γὰρ καὶ γυναιξὶν ἐπέτρεψεν, εἰ ἄνανδροι elev καὶ 
ἡλικίᾳ καιόνται (ΟΥ καίοιντο), ἀναξία, τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀξίαν ἢν μὴ βούλοιντο καθαίρειν. 
Διὰ τοῦτο νομίμως γαμηθῆναι ἔχει ἕνα ὅν ἄν αἱρήσωνται σύγκοιτον, K.T.A, 

3 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 7. 

4 Some MSS. read, hujusmodi in fine dare communionem. 





454 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canon 16. 

Haeretici si se transferre noluerint ad ecclesiam catholicam, nec 
ipsis catholicas dandas esse puellas: sed neque Iudaeis, neque 
haereticis dare placuit ; eo quod nulla possit esse societas fideli cum 
infideli. Si contra interdictum fecerint parentes, abstineri per 


quinquennium placet. 
Canon 17. 


Si qui forte sacerdotibus idolorum filias suas junxerint, placuit, nec 
in fine eis dandam esse communionem. 


Canon 78. 

Si quis fidelis habens uxorem cum Iudaea vel gentili fuerit 
moechatus, a communione arceatur: Quod si alius eum detexerit, 
post quinquennium acta legitima poenitentia poterit dominicae sociari 
communion. 


vesnegay ila following the subject into the field of Church history, the 
between first enquiry which naturally presents itself will have regard to 
Christians actual instances of the marriage connexion, or of the repudia- 


NEE tion of that connexion, between Christians and non-Christians. 

Eunice. Eunice, the mother of 8. Timothy, was a Christian Jewess 
(γυναικὸς Ἰουδαίας πιστῆς), and her husband, S. Timothy’s 
father, was a Greek (πατρὸς δὲ “Ελληνος), possibly a proselyte, 
certainly a Gentile. It does not, however, appear whether he 
was living at the time of Eunice’s baptism. Probably, from 
the silence, he was dead. 

Marcia. Marcia (cire. A.D. 183), styled by S. Hippolytus the “ God- 
loving concubine of Commodus (φιλόθεος παλλακὴ Κομόδου), 
may possibly have been a Christian. She was brought up by 
the eunuch Hyacinthus, who was a Christian presbyter.? She 
used her influence on behalf of the Christians, and sent by 
Hyacinthus an order for the release of certain Christian 
prisoners who were working in the mines of Sardinia. The 
list of these prisoners she had obtained from Victor, the 
bishop. After the assassination of Commodus she married 
Eclectus, who is thought by some to have also been a Christian. 

1 Acts xvi 


? S. Hippolytus, Refutatio ix. 12 (in some editions ο, 7). 
3 Ibid. Dion Cassius, lxxii. 4, 19, 22. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 4095 


There is nothing in the status of a recognised concubine, as we 
shall see elsewhere, which would prevent Marcia from con- 
tinuing the status as being to her Christian marriage, if only 
she had entered upon it prior to baptism. Her education by 
Hyacinthus would, however, rather imply that if she were a 
Christian at all, her Christianity dated from early life. Even 
so, the enaequale conjugium would not have been less possible to 
her as a Christian than any other marriage with a heathen. It 
was due, doubtless, to her lower social position. Commodus 
appears to have had no other wife at the same time, and to 
have given Marcia all the honours of an empress, only that fire 
was not carried before μου. It cannot, however, be said that 
the Christianity of Marcia is altogether proved. 

S. Caecilia (either A.D. 176-180, Fortunatus ; or cire. A.D. 230, 
Symeon Meta.). If we are to accept the narrative of Symeon S. Caecilia. 
Metaphrastes,? she was married by her Christian parents to 
Valerian, a young Roman who was not a Christian. After the 
marriage ceremonies she revealed to Valerian that she had 
made a vow of virginity. He permitted her to keep it, and 
was further prevailed upon to seek Urban the bishop, with a 
view to receiving baptism at his hands. He was, in fact, 
baptized, and after his baptism returned to his wife. But 
then, the story goes on, he found an angel at her side, who 
promised that Valerian’s brother Tiburtius should become a 
Christian, and foretold that both brothers should receive the 
crown of martyrdom. The date assigned is A.D. 230, when the 
persecution under Severus was raging. Turcius Almachius, the 
prefect of the city, put Valerian and Tiburtius to death, and 
the martyrdom of 8. Caecilia shortly followed. Symeon 
Metaphrastes, the narrator, lived in the tenth century, though 
Ceillier and others have sought to assign the legend, as we 
have it, to the commencement of the fifth century. It may, 
perhaps, not be a very useful endeavour to seek to distinguish 
the facts from the additions in such a narrative; but it may be ~ 
noticed that the attempt of Christian parents to marry their 


1 Herodian, p. 486, Ed. Frankfort, 1590, quoted by von Dollinger, Hzppolytus 
and Callistus, which see. (Eng. trans. pp. 173-5.) 
2 Symeon Metaphrastes, Ed. Migne, tom, iii. p. 163. 


Euphro- 
syne. 


S. Juliana. 


456 HOLY MATRIMONY 


daughter to a non-Christian gentleman, while it is an incident 
of a kind which was almost bound to occur occasionally under 
the circumstances of life at Rome in the third century, is not 
the kind of incident which a chronicler of the tenth century 
would be likely to invent. On the other hand, the prior vow 
of virginity, unsanctioned by any home consent, while perhaps 
not without parallel in early times, is exactly the kind of thing 
which a later chronicler would assume by way of accounting 
for the fact that the saint, though married, was commemorated 
as a Virgin Martyr. It does not seem improbable that the 
true story, if we could arrive at it, would show us the saint 
sending Valerian to 8. Urban, not in order that she might keep 
a vow of chastity, but that she might keep the apostolic 
precept not to be “unequally yoked with unbelievers,” and 
that the persecution, by which Gop removed Valerian and 
herself from further trials, followed with such swiftness as to 
find the marriage still incomplete. But it is not desirable to 
dwell upon a conjecture. 

Euphrosyne, the mother of S. Clement of Ancyra, is 
described in the Acts of 5. Clement as born of “noble and 
Christian parents.’ Notwithstanding the fact that her parents 
were Christian, she was given in marriage, much against her 
will, to a heathen husband, of whom it is said that he “ often 
endeavoured to draw her away from the worship of Christ, and 
to lead her over to the veneration of idols.’ She endured 
these attempts with “masculine fortitude,’ and on her part 
strenuously endeavoured to influence her husband in the 
direction of Christianity. He died, however, “ persevering in 
impiety.” As 5. Clement of Ancyra is stated to have been 
born in A.D. 250, the marriage of Euphrosyne would occur 
shortly before that date. She is an instance, therefore, of a 
Christian lady, born of worthy Christian parents, who was 
married to a heathen husband in the first half of the third 
century.! 

S. Juliana, who suffered martyrdom under Maximian (A.D. 
291-311), is universally represented as having suffered in 


1 Acta Sanctorum, Januar. ii. p. 460. (Acta, auctore anonymo, e veteri Graeco 
MS. Latine reddita, a Joanne Scapelinck S. J.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 457 


consequence of her refusal to marry a non-Christian. The 
“ Acts” are not, however, worthy of trust. It is said that 
she had been betrothed as a child to Eleusius, a senator of 
Nicomedia. Her father was a persecutor of the Christians. 
Her mother is described in the “ Acts” as shrinking from the 
“sacrilegia Martis,” and as not identifying herself with either 
Christians or heathen. Juliana accepted Christianity; and 
when she had attained to womanhood, and Eleusius wished to 
solemnize the marriage, she is said to have replied, “If thou 
wilt believe in my GoD, and adore the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, I will accept thee as my husband. But if thou refuse, 
seek thou another wife.”! 

Eleusius informed Juliana’s father of this reply, and the 
father, after coaxing and threatening, had her beaten, and 
sent her to Eleusius, who was then prefect. In his presence 
she repeats her condition. He replies, “My lady Juliana, 
consent to me, and I believe in thy Gop.” “Receive the 
Spirit of Gop, and I will marry thee.” “I cannot, lady 
mine, for if I do the Emperor will hear of it, and, appoint- 
ing a successor to me, will cut off my head with the sword.” 
Juliana persisted in her refusal, and was in consequence 
tortured, and at last beheaded. 

As has been said, these “Acts” cannot be trusted. Yet 
if the dialogue recorded is part of an older tradition, it would 
be very significant. S. Juliana would not have been content 
with the profession of the mere “adherent” or catechumen. 
Her husband must have received the “Spirit of Gop,” that is 
to say, have been baptized. 

S. Susanna (A.D. 294) is another instance of a martyr who S.Susanna 
suffered death rather than marry an unbeliever. Diocletian 
wished to marry her to Maximian. Gabinius, her father, 
interviewed her in company with his brother Caius, the 
Bishop of Rome, on the subject of Diocletian’s wishes. She 
expressed herself as holding in utter abhorrence the idea of 
marriage with “a worshipper of a demon,” and as only desiring 
to be a virgin consecrated to Christ. Her reply was approved 


' Acta Sanctorum, Februar. ii. p. 874. (Acta auctore anonymo ὁ χα, veteribus 
MSS. ) 


Sr 
Anastasia. 


458 HOLY MATRIMONY 


by Caius and Gabinius, and they upheld her in her determina- 
tion to decline the marriage. Her imprisonment and beheadal 
followed. 

S. Anastasia, a noble Roman lady, was the wife of Publius, 
who was sent to Persia by Diocletian as ambassador. Publius 
was a gentilis, and a fierce enemy of Christianity. On dis- 
covering that his wife was a Christian he imprisoned her 
within his own house, and when he set out for Persia, left 
her in chains. He died on the journey, and Anastasia, being 
liberated, devoted herself to the service of the confessors and 
martyrs of the faith, finally gaining the martyr’s crown herself. 
It is most probable from the narrative that δ. Anastasia had 
become-a Christian during her married life, and that she was 
therefore a case for the “ Pauline privilege.” She is believed to 
have suffered martyrdom about A.D. 300.” 

The seven instances which have been enumerated afford 
some curious results, Ὁ. Anastasia was probably a ease of a 
wife converted after marriage, and content to abide with the 
unbelieving husband; and the same would doubtless be true 
of Eunice, unless her husband was dead at the time of her 
baptism, or himself became a convert. The other five 
instances illustrate the question of mixed marriages entered 
upon as such. In two of these five cases, viz., in the cases 
of Marcia and of Euphrosyne, the union was completed 
notwithstanding the difference of faith, though Euphrosyne 
is reported to have submitted to her marriage only with 
reluctance. In the other three cases, those of S. Caecilia, 
S. Juliana, and 8. Susanna, Christian maidens resisted the 
unequal yoke; and all three suffered martyrdom in conse- 
quence, the last two as the direct result of their resistance, 
and §. Caecilia more indirectly. The attitude of the parents 
and friends is a further indication of the prevalent confusion 
of practice. The Christian parents of 8. Caecilia, and those 
of Euphrosyne, forced upon their daughters marriages with 
non-Christian husbands. In the case of 8. Susanna, Gabinius 
approved the resistance of his daughter. 


1 Baronius, Annal. ad ann, 294 (Lucae 1738, tom. iii. p. 268). 
2 Ibid. ad ann. 300 (tom. 111, p. 292). 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 459 


The notices of S. Caecilia, Euphrosyne, S. Juliana, S. Susanna, 
and 5. Anastasia are all taken from “Acts” and other narra- 
tives, none of which rank high as authorities. Yet there is 
nothing to indicate that the confusion of practice, to which 
they witness, is unlikely to be a true presentation of the facts. 
S. Cyprian finds in the prevalence of mixed marriages in the 
second century in Africa a crying provocative of the wrath 
of God.t The same confusion of practice is found to prevail 
in the age immediately following, and is there witnessed by 
the best authorities. On the other hand, it would not be 
familiar ground to the editors and amplifiers of “Acts” in 
later ages, when such mixed marriages were practically un- 
known. To these instances of Christian women married to 
non-Christian men may be added the name of Pescennia Quod- 
vultdeus, from the inscription at Meserga in the district of 
Tunis, which is given above from Maffei.2 It is assigned by 
Morcelhi, from the pro-consulate of C. Quinctilius Marcellus, 
to the year A.D. 227.2 He concludes, from the name Quod- 
vultdeus, that the wife of Marcellus was at once a Christian 
and of African race. Possibly Pescennia was the original 
name, and Quodvultdeus the baptismal name given in the 
African Church, where the lady may very well have become 
a convert during the pro-consulate of her husband. 

No single instance is known of a mixed marriage where 
the husband was the Christian and the wife the unbeliever. 
This circumstance is of interest in connexion with the con- 
clusion that, at least in the upper ranks of society, Chris- 
tianity numbered fewer men than women. 

Of the writers of the first three centuries, the first to be 
noticed is 8. Justin Martyr. The narrative* of the lady who writers: 
put away a non-Christian husband for certain offences belongs > ἀστῶν 
rather to the subject of divorce; but since it has been some- 
times held, as by Keble, that this narrative is “virtually a 
case under 1 Cor. vii. 15,” it may be noticed here that since 
the repudiation of the husband did not occur at the time 
of the conversion of the wife, but at a later period, and after 


1 §. Cyprian, De Lapsis,c. 6. * Maffei, Musewm Veronense, Ὁ. 464, No. 6. 
3 Morcelli, Africa Christiana, ii. Ὁ. 91. 4 See above, p. 200. 


Tertullian. 


460 HOLY MATRIMONY 


an interval during which marital relations had been continued, 
the lady must be regarded as bound by the laws of 
Christian marriage. She does not, indeed, appear to have 
transgressed them, for there is no mention of her remarriage. 

Of the earliest writers, by far the fullest on this subject is 
Tertullian. In the Ad Uxorem, written about A.D. 197-199— 
while Tertullian was still in the communion of the Church 
—he tells us that certain women, in forming second marriages, 
“had not even chosen to remember that they should ‘marry 
in the Lord.’” These women had presumably availed them- 
selves of the secular facilities of marriage, which were open 
to them, without obtaining the sanction of the Church to 
their unions. Commenting on 8. Paul’s instruction to marry 
“in the Lord,” he says that “now he is not persuading, but 
expressly commanding,” and accordingly to marry otherwise 
than “in the Lord” is “contumacy.” Tertullian, in common 
with other Christian writers of the early centuries, under- 
stands the phrase “marry in the Lord” to mean marriage 
with a Christian. A person who offends, as Tertullian says 
that certain women in his time had offended, by marrying a 
“Gentile,” is not to excuse himself by reference to the per- 
mission given to converts to continue existing unions. “It 
is manifest that that Scripture indicates those of the faithful 
who shall have been found by the grace of Gop when already 
in Gentile wedlock.” “He shows that one already living in 
wedlock with an unbelieving woman, and then converted by 
the grace of Gop, ought to persevere with his wife, no doubt 
on this account, lest any, having adopted the faith, should 
think that he ought to turn away from a woman who was 
now in some sort an alien and an extern.” “Some one will 
say, ‘What, then, is the difference between him who, being 
in wedlock with a Gentile woman, is admitted by the Lord, 
and one who is a Christian of old, that is, before his marriage, 
that they should not make provision for the flesh on equal 
terms, since one is warned off from marriage with an un- 
believer, and the other is commanded to persevere in it? 
Why, if we are polluted by a Gentile, is not the one disunited, 
as the other is not permitted to become bound?’” Tertullian 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 461 


replies, “I will answer, if the Spirit shall permit, first of all 
alleging that the Lord rather approveth that marriage should 
not be contracted than in any case dissolved; finally, He for- 
biddeth divorce, saving for the cause of fornication, but com- 
mendeth continency. Let then the one have the necessity of 
abiding, but the other not even the power of marrying. Then 
if, according to the Scripture, they that are found by faith in 
marriage with a heathen are therefore not defiled, because with 
themselves others also become sanctified; without doubt they 
who before marriage were sanctified, if they be joined with 
‘strange flesh, cannot sanctify that wherewith they were not 
found.” 

This clear and definite theological ground of distinction leads 
Tertullian to a no less clear practical conclusion. “It is evident 
that believers entering into marriage with heathens are guilty 
of fornication, and must be forbidden all communication with 
the brotherhood, according to the letters of the Apostle, who 
saith that with such an one we must not even eat.” 

Mixed marriages are also condemned in the De Corona, the 
Treatise against Marcion, and the De Monogamua. 

Tertullian, then, is of opinion that the instruction of S. Paul 
justifies a convert in retaining a non-Christian partner; and he 
holds that in the case at any rate which S. Paul indicates, the 
case where the non-Christian partner is willing to abide, the 
convert is not merely justified in retaining such partner, but 
that there is imposed upon him “a necessity of perseverance” 
(perseverand. necessitatem). At the same time Tertullian 
definitely disallows such marriage between one already bap- 
tized and a non-Christian ; and he holds that any such marriage 
is an offence calling for excommunication. 

Ὁ. Cyprian, in his treatise De Lapsis, enumerating the many sg, Cyprian. 
faults of the Christians of his day (Bp. A.D. 248-258) condemns 
the practice of mixed marriages in very strong terms. “To 
join with unbelievers in the bond of matrimony is to prostitute 
the members of Christ to the Gentiles.’ Thus the ground 
of the condemnation is that the bodies of Christians are 
members of Christ, and that the bodies of non-Christians are 


1 De Lapsis, c. 6. 


S. Hippo- 
lytus. 


462 HOLY MATRIMONY 


not members of Christ. Such unnatural unions ought, in the 
opinion of 5. Cyprian, to be ranked among the offences which 
brought upon the Christians the scourge of the Decian perse- 
cution. A chapter of the treatise Against the Jews collects all 
the texts of Holy Scripture which, in 8. Cyprian’s view, had 
a bearing on the subject. He evidently understands them to 
be unanimous in their condemnation of mixed marriages.? 

One of the charges made. by Hippolytus against Callistus, 
the Bishop of Rome (a.p. 213-223), is of interest in the present 
connexion. He finds fault with Callistus because he permitted 
women of senatorial rank, if they were unmarried and in danger 
of incontinence, to form unions with slaves, with the sanction 
of the Church. The horror of Hippolytus at marriages not 
recognised by the Roman law need hardly be considered; but, 
if the fact be accepted as he states it, what did the action of 
Callistus mean ? It is true that Callistus had been a slave, and 
that he would doubtless feel keenly the hardship of the legal 
disabilities to which slaves were subjected. But there is no 
indication that the action of Callistus was at all in the interest 
of the slaves. Callistus had made the concession with which 
Hippolytus charges him, for ladies who were (1) unmarried, and 
(2) in danger of incontinence (ἡλικίᾳ καιόνται), and the con- 
cession was that in such a case the lady might accept as a 
partner “one (slave) whomsoever she might choose.” That the 
union was from the Christian point of view marriage in the full 
sense is clear from the words of Hippolytus himself, who says 
that Callistus held such persons to be lawfully married (νομίμως 
yaunOnvat).” 

Now the question arises, Why, because a lady was (1) un- 
married and (2) in danger of incontinence, should there be any 
necessity for her to unite herself with a slave in an union 
which, before the law and in the view of Roman society, was 
accounted a shameful concubinage? Why should not such a 
lady marry in her own rank? There appears to be only one 
satisfactory reason. ‘The Christian converts among men in the 





1 Adversus Judaeos, lib, ili. c. 62. 
? So, if we accept the reading accepted by von Dollinger. See his Hippolytus 
and Callistus, p. 149. Duncker’s reading gives a different sense. 


"ὦ =o 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 463 


upper ranks of society were as yet few in number; while, on 
the other hand, it probably was the case in Rome, as in 
some other places, that there were among the Christians “ of 
honourable women not a few.” If, therefore, marriages between 
Christians and unbelievers were forbidden or discouraged, a 
certain number of such ladies must either remain unmarried 
or marry beneath them. In particular cases, rules Callistus, 
the latter is the preferable course. In other words, the worst 
of temporal consequences is to be preferred to any profanation 
of the members of Christ, whether by fornication, or by 
marriage with unbelievers. 

If this explanation be the correct one, it goes far to explain 
not only the attitude of Callistus, but the indisputable facts of 
the occasional occurrence of mixed marriages, and of the ten- 
dency on the part of Christian parents to seek such marriages 
for their daughters.! 

The Canons of the Council of Eliberis (between A.D. 306 and Council of 
924) are very explicit with regard to marriage relations between pice 
believers and unbelievers. The 10th Canon rules that an un- 
baptized woman, who was once the wife of a catechumen, but 
whom the catechumen has left, and who has since married 
another husband, is admissible to baptism. In other words, 
her marriage outside baptism is not regarded as possessing the 
indissoluble character. “The same is to be observed with re- 
gard to female catechumens.” Presumably by this is meant 
that the man who has been left by a former wife being a 
catechumena, and who has married again, is admissible to 
baptism. But then follows a remarkable qualification: “ But 
if she shall be a baptized Christian (fidelis) who is taken in 
marriage by him who has deserted a blameless wife, and that 
when she knows that he has a wife whom he has left without 
cause, 1t was determined that communion should not be accorded 
to her even at the last.” This passage is full of indications as 
to the teaching and practice of the Church. The man, who 
being unbaptized has married outside Christianity, is not bound 
by the indissoluble and sacramental bond which the union of 


1 On the action of Callistus see the whole passage in von ees Hippolytus 
and Callistus. English Trans. pp. 147-175. 


464 HOLY MATRIMONY 


members of Christ involves. Consequently he is not bound to 
return to his first partner if, while unbaptized, he has married 
a second. This will be no less true if his new partner is a 
baptized Christian woman, if the matter be regarded simply 
from the point of view of the solubility of the former marriage. 
But then what business had a baptized Christian woman to 
marry an unbaptized person at all, in the face of the prohibi- 
tions of 8. Paul, even though he might be called a catechumen ? 
This brings us to what was evidently one of the great difficulties 
of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries. An unbaptized 
person, who yet professed to be a Christian by conviction, who 
mixed familiarly, and as in some sort a member, in Christian 
society, and who was simply putting off his baptism from mixed 
feelings of superstition and unwillingness to bear the Christian 
yoke, was a difficult person to class for practical purposes. 
Strictly speaking he was no Christian, as not being a member 
of the body of Christ; yet in popular language he would be 
spoken of as a Christian. When he wished to marry was he 
to marry a Christian or one outside Christianity ? Not the 
latter if he looked forward to baptism and true membership in 
Christ, for though the yoke might not be unequal now, in 
undertaking it he would do so in the full knowledge that 
it would some day become an unequal yoke. Nor might a 
Christian woman rightly marry him, for that would be to take 
the members of Christ and unite them to one who was outside 
Christ’s body, one therefore in union with whom the holiness of 
marriage could not reasonably be looked for. The right counsel 
to a catechumen seeking marriage would of course be that he 
should first by baptism become a member of Christ, and then 
marry “in the Lord.” But immediate baptism was precisely 
what many of the professing Christians of that age declined to 
accept. And these secularly-minded Christians were precisely 
the men who were least likely to lve pure lives in the un- 
married state. It is not hard to see that in such a condition of 
things a formidable array of difficulties would arise. 

The Council of Eliberis shews us the evil already in force, 
but, by comparison, only in its beginnings. In the two 
centuries which were coming, and which were to see the 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 465 


crowding of the world into the Church, the catechumen who 
professed the Christian faith, but would not be baptized, 
became one of the great crosses of the Christian Church. 
So much was this the case, that the necessary tendency of 
those ages was to apply as far as might be the discipline of 
baptized Christians to the catechumens, since these, while 
professing the Christian faith, were continually profaning their 
Christian profession, and bringing the Christian name into 
disrepute among the heathen. Accordingly we shall find in 
the matter of the remarriage of converts a certain tendency to 
rigorism in 8. Augustine and the Church of his time, which 
is not found at the end of the first three centuries. By the 
Christians of the earlier period the catechumen was regarded 
as a non-Christian till he was baptized; by the Christian of the 
fourth and fifth centuries the catechumen had too often to be 
regarded as a sort of Christian who needed to be controlled 
and restrained. 

The Council of Eliberis is then of the highest importance, 
as shewing us what was probably the traditional practice of 
the primitive Church, a practice which lasted till the pressure 
of circumstances led to a more rigorous attitude. 

Returning to the consideration of the 10th Canon of the 
Council, the case supposed is that a Christian woman has 
married a catechumen or professing Christian as yet un- 
baptized. If in so marrying him she was not properly aware 
that he had put away another wife without just ground of 
complaint, there was nothing in the nature of her union to 
oblige her to leave him if he would accept baptism. His 
former marriage was soluble, and his present marriage would 
become Christian marriage, when he too by baptism became a 
member of Christ. But if she was aware of his uncalled-for 
action in divorcing the former blameless wife, then, although 
that former marriage was no more indissoluble than if she had 
not known about it, yet her action assumed so much more 
serious a complexion, that the Council, by ecclesiastical regula- 
tion, passed upon her the supreme punishment of the Church. 
She was to be excluded from communion “even at the last.” 
Apparently she offended in two ways: firstly, in marrying an 

2H 


466 HOLY MATRIMONY 


unbaptized person at all, an offence, however, which under the 
difficulties of the time the Council was not prepared to punish 
severely, unless the offence was complicated; but secondly 
also, in that, knowing the instructions of 8. Paul and the 
practice of the Church, which would have put pressure on the 
man to retain his blameless non-Christian wife, if she for her 
part was willing to abide with him, the Christian woman yet 
encouraged him to leave his wife, and form a new union with 
herself. 

The 11th Canon is as follows: “But if a catechumena 
should be seriously sick within the space of five years, it was 
determined that baptism should not be denied to her.” This 
Canon must be read with the 10th; but it is somewhat 
doubtful whether the catechumena alluded to is the catechu- 
mena of the 10th Canon who had left her husband, or a 
catechumena who, like the jidelis of the 10th Canon, had with 
full knowledge married a man who had put away a blameless 
wife. The latter is perhaps the more probable. If we adopt 
it, the Canon will imply that a catechwmena, with her knowledge 
of Christian principles and practice, must be subjected to 
discipline for such conduct, though not in the same measure as 
the baptized Christian, and that this discipline shall be five 
years’ exclusion from baptism, but that if she be in danger of 
death at any time before the five years have elapsed, she may 
be baptized. 

The 15th Canon forbids the giving of Christian virgins in 
marriage to the heathen (gentilibus), on the ground of any 
excess in the number of such Christian virgins. Here is direct 
evidence of that preponderance of women in the Christian 
community which is indicated by the action of Callistus. The 
Canon shews at work the very natural tendency on the part 
of Christian parents to find, in such preponderance of women, 
a justification of marriages with heathen husbands. Notwith- 
standing this tendency, the Council peremptorily forbids all 
such unions. The 16th Canon again prohibits the marrying of 
Christian girls to either heretics or Jews, in both cases alike on 
the ground that there can be no societas between a believer and 
an unbeliever. The 17th Canon visits an extreme case with 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 467 


the extreme penalty: “If any shall have married their 
daughters to idol-priests, 11 was determined that communion 
was not to be accorded to them even at the last.” The 78th 
Canon is not without interest as to connexion with non- 
Christians. Whereas in the 69th Canon it is generally laid 
down that a married man who is unfaithful on one occasion 
(semel fuerit lapsus) is to undergo five years’ penance, in the 
78th Canon it is provided that when the sin shall have been 
committed with a Jewess or with a heathen woman, this 
penalty is only to be imposed when the man himself has not 
confessed the sin, but some other person has brought it to 
light. When the man acknowledges the sin, he is indeed to be 
excluded from communion, but evidently for a shorter term. 
The Council appears to be of opinion that whereas the body of 
Christ is doubly polluted when both parties to the sin are 
Christians, the Christian who sins with one who is not a 
Christian, serious though his sin is, is yet distinctly less sinful 
than in the other case. 


Summing up the principles of the Council of Eliberis on the 
subject before us, we find: 


(1) That while Christian marriage, or the marriage of two 
baptized persons, was regarded as indissoluble, the 
marriage of a catechumen, or professing Christian not 
yet baptized, was held to be soluble. 


(2) That the tie which bound a catechumen, or professing 
Christian not yet baptized, to a blameless non- 
Christian partner, was nevertheless of strong moral 
obligation. 


(3) That a baptized Christian was to be strictly forbidden to 
marry outside the Church, whether heathen, Jew, or 
heretic, seeing there could be no equality of relation 
between a believer and unbeliever. (It is clear, 
however, that the marriage of a baptized Christian 
with a catechumen did sometimes take place, and 
that, if inference may be trusted, it did not always 
meet with grave condemnation.) 

2H 2 


468 HOLY MATRIMONY 


These few notices appear to exhaust the evidence of the 
period prior to Constantine. It is of twofold bearing, partly 
regarding the divorce and remarriage of converts, and partly 
the marriage of baptized Christians with persons not baptized. 
- (a) As regards the divorce and remarriage of converts, there 
is in this period no voice which denies that the converted 
partner may continue in marriage with the non-Christian 
partner if he be willing to do so. Tertullian and the Council 
of Eliberis are both strongly of this view. Tertullian, in 
laying stress upon it, does not treat of the permissible case of 
divorce except by quoting 8. Paul’s instruction. The Council 
of Eliberis clearly recognises that the marriage of a catechumen 
or professing Christian who is unbaptized is soluble, and that 
such marriages may on occasion be followed by the remarriage 
of the catechumens. The repudiation of a blameless wife is, 
nevertheless, highly reprehensible. 

(Ὁ) As regards the marriage of baptized Christians with 
persons not baptized, the cases of 8. Caecilia and Euphrosyne 
shew that such marriages, notwithstanding the apostolic pre- 
cept, were sometimes sought by Christian parents for their 
daughters. The case of Marcia is probably also a case in 
which a Christian woman was united to a heathen husband 
in what the Church treated as marriage, though by the Roman 
law it was recognised “concubinage.” Tertullian says that 
certain Christian women in his day had married “Gentiles,” 
and the strong protest of S. Cyprian was called forth by his 
feeling that the practice of such marriages was to be ranked 
among the causes which brought about the Decian persecution. 
While, however, the occurrence of instances of mixed marriages 
is undeniable, they appear to have been distinctly against the 
mind of the Church. 8. Juliana and S. Susanna preferred 
death to marriage with an unbeliever. S. Caecilia resisted her 
marriage probably for the same reason. Tertullian says that 
“believers entering into marriage with heathens are guilty of 
fornication, and must be forbidden all communication with 
the brotherhood.” 8S. Cyprian says that such persons “ prosti- 
tute the members of Christ to the Gentiles.” Callistus would 
rather that a lady of senatorial rank should form an union with 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 469 


a Christian slave than that she should marry in her rank 
outside the Church. The Council of Eliberis forbids all such 
marriages, on the ground that there can be no societas between 
a believer and an unbeliever. There are, however, two points 
about the prohibitions of Eliberis which need to be noticed. 
The first, that the marriage of a baptized Christian with a 
catechumen does not in every case seem to have met with 
serious condemnation ; and the other, that heretics were included 
with Jews and heathens in the prohibition of mixed marriages, 
the Church not having yet distinguished between a properly 
baptized misbeliever and one who was not a member of the 
body of Christ at all. 


B. From Constantine to Justinian. 


AUTHORITIES. 
CouncIL oF ARLEs.! 
Canon 11. 


De puellis fidelibus quae gentilibus junguntur, placuit ut aliquanto 
tempore a communione separentur. 


Councin or LaopicEa.? 
Canon 10. 
Περὶ τοῦ μὴ δεῖν τοὺς τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀδιαφόρως πρὸς γάμου κοινωνίαν 


΄ὔ ΝΣ a ΄ ε κ᾿ 
συνάπτειν Τὰ εαὐτῶν παιδία ALPETLKOLS, 


Canon 31.8 
7 3 A τᾷ , ε \ 5 } A Xa , εκ 
Ort οὐ δεῖ πρὸς πάντας αἱρετικοὺς ἐπιγαμίας ποιεῖν, ἢ διδόναι υἱοὺς, 
ἢ θυγατέρας, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον λαμβάνειν, εἴγε ἐπαγγέλλοιντο χριστιανοὶ 
γίνεσθαι. 
THe AFrRicaAN Cope. 
Can. 21 (=c, 12 of the 3rd Council of Carthage).* 


Iterum placuit ut filii clericorum gentilibus, vel haereticis, matri- 

monio non jungantur, 
S. Βαβι, (Ep. 188).° 
Canon 9. 
᾿Αλλὰ Kal ἀπίστου ἀνδρὸς χωρίξεσθαι οὐ προσετάχθη γυνὴ, ἀλλὰ 
he Ν <7 Ψ lal > ΄ , Ν ἫΝ fe 2 Ν 

παραμένειν διὰ το ἄδηλον ΤῊ 9 ἐκβάσεως. Ἵ Yop οἶδας, yuvat, ει TOV 
ἄνδρα σώσεις. 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 472. 2 Ibid. p. 564. 3 Ibid. p. 568. 
4 Ibid. tom. iii, p. 722. 5 Migne’s Ed. tom, iv. p. 677. 


470 HOLY MATRIMONY 


S. CHRYSOSTOM. 
De Virginitate, § 12.1 
ϑι nw 5 - 
Εἶπε yap av τις πρὸς αὐτόν: Οὐκ ἀνέχομαι εἶναι μετὰ τῆς ἀπίστου 
ἃς ΠῚ Luss \ an >’ “ ε θ ΑΞ ρα ri \ “Φ 
πιστὸς ὧν αὐτὸς, μετὰ τῆς ἐναγοῦς ὃ καθαρός" αὐτὸς προλαβὼν εἶπες 
¢ lal > Ἂς \ Ν 
ὅτι σὺ ταῦτα λέγεις, οὐχ 6 κύριος. Πόθεν οὖν μοι τὸ ἀσφαλὲς καὶ τὸ 
5) “AN ‘\ ᾽ὔ ἮΝ Ἂς 
βέβαιον; ᾿Αλλ’ εἶπεν ἂν πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁ Παῦλος: Μὴ δείσῃς, διὰ γὰρ 
“A ων ¢ \ ς ” fa) 3 > ae x μέ 
τοῦτο εἶπον, ὅτι τὸν Χριστὸν ἔχω λαλοῦντα ἐν ἐμαυτῳ" καὶ OTL 
Δοκῶ πνεῦμα ἔχειν Θεοῦ, ἵνα μηδὲν ἀνθρώπινον ὑποπτεύσῃς εἶναι τῶν 
5) 3 A > A 
λεγομένων. Hi yap μὴ τοῦτο ἦν, οὐκ ἂν τοσαύτην ἔδωκα τοῖς ἐμοῖς 
A \ ᾿ 3 
λογισμοῖς τὴν ἐξουσίαν. Aoywpot γὰρ ἀνθρώπων δειλοὶ, καὶ ἐπι- 
A tig , 5 ἴω Pr \ aS nN nN > i 
σφαλεῖς at ἐπίνοιαι αὐτῶν. Δείκνυσι δὲ Kal ἡ πανταχοῦ τῆς οἰκουμένης 
an > 
᾿Εκκλησία τοῦ νόμου τὴν ἰσχὺν μετὰ ἀκριβείας αὐτὸν φυλάττουσα, οὐκ 
“ “ Ν 
ἂν φυλάξασα, εἰ μὴ πέπειστο ἀκριβῶς εἶναι Χριστοῦ πρόσταγμα τὸ 
λεχθέν. 
Against those who fust with the Jews.? 


"Hav μὲν yap ἄπιστον ἔχῃ γυναῖκά τις, τουτέστιν, ᾿Ελληνίδα, οὐκ 
ἀναγκάζεται ἐκβαλεῖν: Ei τις γὰρ, φησὶν, ἔχει γυναῖκα ἄπιστον, καὶ 
αὐτὴ συνευδοκεῖ οἰκεῖν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, μὴ ἀφιέτω αὐτήν" ἂν δὲ πόρνην καὶ 
μοιχαλίδα, οὐ κωλύεται ἐκβάλλειν: Ὅς γὰρ ἂν, φησὶν, ἀπολύσει τὴν 
γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας, ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι. 
Ὥστε ἐπὶ λόγου πορνείας ἔξεστιν ἀπολῦσαι. Hides φιλανθρωπίαν Θεοῦ 
καὶ κηδεμονίαν. “Av ‘KAAnvis ἢ, φησὶν, ἡ γυνὴ, μὴ ἐκβάλλῃς " ἂν δὲ 
πόρνη. οὐ κωλύω τοῦτο ποιῆσαι. “Av εἰς ἐμὲ, φησὶν, ἀσεβήσῃ, μὴ 
ἐκβάλλῃς ἂν δὲ ἐις σὲ ὑβρίσῃ, οὐδεὶς ὁ κωλύων ἐκβαλεῖν. 


Homily xix. on 1 Corinthians. (On 1 Cor. vii. 13, sqq.)? 


AW Ἂς si A ἣν. θ , / ee ὃ 6 fs 
σπερ yap περὶ TOV χωρίζεσθαι πόρνων διαλεγόμενος TH ἐπιδιορθώσει 
aA A fs “Ἂ 
τὸ πρᾶγμα πεποίηκεν ἐύκολον ἐιπὼν᾽ καὶ οὐ πάντως τοῖς πόρνοις τοῦ 
, bd ‘ gy Ἂς A. 5 an an “4 > Ni 
κόσμου τούτου" ὅυτω δὴ Kal ἐνταῦθα πολλῆς προενόησεν εὐκολίας, 
5 ΄ > M4 δ εὐ δ 9.» Ἂς a ” ” Ἂς > , 
εἰπών" “Hav τις ἢ γυνὴ ἄνδρα, ἢ ἀνὴρ γυναῖκα ἔχῃ ἄπιστον, μὴ adieTo 
5 Ve *e 7 a Ν Υ 7 \ lay ἌΣ . δὲ 
ἀντήν. Τί λέγεις ; ἂν μὲν ἄπιστος, μενέτω μετὰ τῆς γυναικὸς" ἂν dE 
ig , las ΄ 7 
πόρνος, μηκέτι; καίτοι ye ἔλαττον ἡ πορνεία τῆς ἀπιστιάς. ᾿λαττον 
μὲν ἡ πορνεία, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ Θεὸς τῶν σῶν φείδεται σφόδρα. 
an a rc x , \ 
Τοῦτο καὶ ἐν τῇ θυσίᾳ ποιεῖ λέγων: “Ades τὴν θυσίαν, καὶ 
καταλλάγηθι τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου" τοῦτω καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ τὰ μύρια τάλαντα 
5 ἫΝ K \ \ Th aia , \ ὯΝ a Coss 
ὀφείλοντος. αἱ γὰρ ἐκεῖνον μύρια μὲν τάλαντα χρεωστοῦντα AUTH 


> de whe ε \ \ 7 XX / > 7 > a 
οὐκ ἐκόλασεν, ἑκατὸν δὲ δηνάρια TOV σύνδουλον ἀπαιτήσαντα ἐτιμωρήσατο. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 341. 2 Ibid. p. 860. 
Pod bed, ΟΠ ΧΡ 101 


wea 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 471 


Ke oe Ἂν “Ἃ ς Ν id 5 (6 te ὃ Ν \ i. We ; 
ira ἵνα μὴ φοβῆται ἡ γυνὴ ὡς ἀκάθαρτος γινομένη διὰ τὴν μίξιν, 
φησίν: “Ἡγίασται γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικὶ, κὰι ἡγίασται ἡ 
\ Ἐπ| 9} 5 on 3 ὃ ra K / ἐπ: ἊΝ / XA τῷ ᾿ Ψ “~ 
γυνὴ ἢ ἄπιστος ἐν τῷ ἀνδρί. alto. εἰ ὁ τῇ πόρνῃ κολλώμενος. ἕν σῶμα 
5 4 [2 εὖ Ε “a 5 7 he [2] “ 7 5 ‘ a 
ἐστιν, εὔδηλον ὅτι καὶ ἡ τῷ εἰδωλολάτρῃ κολλωμένη EV σῶμά ἐστιν" EV 
% “ ape) FANG 3 7 3 5 iO LAAQ 5 oe! ε - θ a 
μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν, a οὐ γίνεται ἀκάθαρτος, ἀλλὰ νικᾷ ἡ καθαρότης 
τῆς γυναικὸς τὴν ἀκαθαρσίαν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς, καὶ νικᾷ ἡ καθαρότης τοῦ 
πιστοῦ ἀνδρὸς πάλιν τὸ ἀκάθαρτον τῆς ἀπίστου γυναικός. 
ὯΝ ay > a \ f So λον X Aa 4 € 
II@s οὖν ἐνταῦθα μὲν νενίκηται τὸ ἀκάθαρτον, διὸ καὶ ἐπιτέτραπται ἡ 
4 3 \ X “ 7 \ > A 3 / 
συνουσία" ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς πορνευομένης γυναικὸς οὐ κατηγορεῖται ἐκβάλλων 
= ΄ τ 
αὐτὴν ὁ ἀνήρ; Ὅτι ἐνταῦθα μὲν ἐλπὶς σώξεσθαι τὸ ἀπολωλὸς μέρος διὰ 
τοῦ γάμου, ἐκεῖ δὲ ὁ γάμος ἤδη διαλέλυται" κἀκεῖ μὲν ἀμφότεροι δια- 
a » Ss » « 
φθείρονται, ἐνταῦθα δὲ θατέρου τὸ ἔγκλημα. Οἷόν τι λέγω" ἔστιν ἡ 
a“ Pe Z- ¢ 
πορνευθεῖσα καθάπαξ, μιαρά. Hi τοίνυν ὁ κολλώμενος τῇ πόρνῃ ἕν 
σῶμά ἐστι, καὶ ἀνυντὸς γίνεται μιαρὸς πορνευούσῃ μιγνύμενος, διὰ τοῦτο 
ἀφίπταται ἡ καθαρότης ἅπασα. ᾿Βνταῦθα δὲ οὐχ οὕτως" ἀλλὰ πῶς ; 
[Ἔστιν ἀκάθαρτος ὁ εἰδωλολάτρης, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ γυνὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀκάθαρτος. 
Ei Ν \ > 7 > τς \ Lal ἃς > LO μὰ λέ ON 
t μὲν yap ἐκοινώνει αὐτῷ κατὰ τοῦτο, καθὸ ἀκάθαρτος ἦν, λέγω δὲ 
Ν \ 5 ΄ SA wx \ a 5 5 LO ἊἋ θ 7 ἊΝ δὲ Lao ro 
κατὰ τὴν ἀσέβειαν, ἔμελλε kal αὕτη ἀκάθαρτος γίνεσθαι" νυνὶ δὲ ἑτέρως 
\ 5 > te φς 5 / 5 Rom a \ > ex / 
μὲν ἐστιν ἀκάθαρτος 6 εἰδωλολάτρης, ἐν ἑτέρῳ δὲ αὐτῷ πράγματι 
κοινωνεῖ ἡ γυνὴ, ἐν ᾧ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀκάθαρτος. Ldpos γάρ ἐστι καὶ μίξις 
/ \ ςε tA a “ \ 2 NS > An «ς \ 
σωμάτων, καθὸ ἡ κοινωνιά, Ilddwv τοῦτον μὲν ἐλπὶς ἀνακληθῆναι ὑπὸ 
τῆς γυναικὸς φκείωται γὰρ αὕτη" ἐκεῖνον δὲ οὐ σφόδρα εὔκολον. Ilds 
5 / \ a“ 
γὰρ ἡ τὸν ἔμπροσθεν ἀτιμάσασα χρόνον, Kal γενομένη ἑτερόυ, καὶ τοῦ 
΄ \ ᾿ > , > ͵, , x > , 
γάμου τὰ δίκαια ἀφανίσασα, ἀνακαλέσασθαι δυνήσεται τὸν ἠδικημένον, 
πρὸς τούτοις καὶ τὸν μένοντα ὡς Eevov; ]άλιν ἐκεῖ μὲν μετὰ τὴν 
πορνειάν ὃ ἀνὴρ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀνήρ᾽ ἐνταῦθα δὲ, κἄν εἰδωλολάτρις ἡ γυνὴ, 
τοῦ ἀνδρὸς τὸ δίκαιον οὐκ ἀπόλλυται. Οὐχ ἁπλῶς δὲ συνοικίζει τῷ 
ἀπίστῳ, ἀλλὰ τῷ βουλομένῳ διὸ eure’ Kat αὐτὸς συνευδοκεῖ ὀικεῖν 
) 5 “ lal Ν 5 νὰ 7 ag \ Ἂν lan 5 4, 
per’ ἀυτῆς. Llotov yap, εἰπέ por, βλάβος, ὅταν καὶ τὰ τῆς ἐυσεβειάς 
“Ὁ / Ἂς 
ἀκέραια διαμένῃ, καὶ ἐλπίδες ὦσι χρησταὶ περὶ τοῦ ἀπίστου, μένειν τοὺς 
3 lay / IQN Ν 
ἤδη ζευχθέντας, καὶ μὴ περιττῶν πολέμων ὑποθέσεις εἰσάγειν ; οὐδὲ γὰρ 
ἴων “ \ ~“ 4 
περὶ τῶν μηδέπω συνελθόντων διαλέγεται viv, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν ἤδη 
5 5) A 5 > 
συνελθόντων. Ov γὰρ εἶπεν, Hi τις βούλεται λαβεῖν ἄπιστον, ἀλλ᾽, 
5 Ὁ 3 “ Xn “ 547 
Hi τις ἔχει ἄπιστον" οἷον εἴ τις μετὰ τὸ γαμῆσαι ἢ γαμηθῆναι ἐδέξατο 
σι = ΄, Aan , \ 
τὸν λόγον THs εὐσεβείας, εἶτα θάτερον μέρος ἐναπέμεινε τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ, καὶ 
7 Ἂς a \ PKS Ψ ἐ «ε / Ν Ν ε SPF 
στέργει TO συνοικεῖν, μὴ διαῤῥηγνύσθω" ᾿Ἡγίασται yap, φησὶν, ὁ ἀνὴρ 
“a nN fal / 
ὁ ἄπιστος ἐν TH γυναικί: Τοσαύτη ἡ περιουσία τῆς σῆς καθαρότητος. 
3 “A > \ eS & 4 Ψ 5 
Τί οὖν ; ἅγιός ἐστιν 6"EXAnv; Οὐδαμῶς: οὐ γὰρ εἶπεν, “Αγιός ἐστιν, 
an n i) 5 [72 / > la 
ἀλλ᾽, ἩἩγίασται ἐν τῇ γυναικί, Τοῦτο δὲ εἶτεν, οὐχ ἵνα δείξῃ ἐκεῖνον 


4 “ 3 ἴω 
ἅγιον, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ἐκ περιουσιάς τὸν φόβον ἐξέλῃ τῆς γυναικὸς κἀκεῖνον 


yo, HOLY MATRIMONY 


*) > ’ὔ > / n~ 5 / 3 Ν “ 7 Ν > (0 
εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ἀγάγῃ τῆς ἀληθείας. Οὐ γὰρ τῶν σωμάτων τὸ ἀκάθαρτον, 
φ > ε / > Ν lal , Ν an x A Ee 
ὧν ἐστιν ἡ κοινωνία, ἀλλὰ τῆς προαιρέσεως καὶ τῶν λογισμῶν. ἦτα 
Ν > x > Ν 5 / , as \ \ Na > > Ν 
καὶ ἀπόδειξις" εἰ γὰρ ἀκάθαρτος μένουσα γεννᾷς, τὸ δὲ παιδίον οὐκ ἀπὸ 
lal ‘é 3 7 ” Ν ,7ὔ A > e / θ £ = \ δὲ 
σοῦ μόνης, ἀκάθαρτον ἄρα τὸ παιδίον, ἢ ἐξ ἡμισείας καθαρόν" νυνὶ oe 
5 y ng ἥν μὰ. τὰ , ; +1) ny Ἂς Ψ ς “ > 10 
οὐκ ἔστιν ακάθαρτον. Διὸ καὶ ἐπήγαγεν, ᾿Επεὶ τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτα 
2 nk Ἂς eo 5 ΄΄ » 3 / Ῥίον δὲ dA 
ἐστι νυνὶ δὲ ἅγια ἐστι" τουτέστιν οὐκ ἀκάθαρτα. Αὐτὸς δὲ ἅγια 
~ an ἴω » 
ἐκάλεσε, τῇ περιουσίᾳ τῆς λέξεως πάλιν ἐκβάλλων. τῆς τοιαύτης 
ὑποψίας τὸ δέος. Hi δὲ 6 ἄπιστος χωρίξται; χωριζέσθω. ᾿Ιϊνταῦθα 
Ἂν Ξ 4 7 ἥν lan > / sf 5 5 Ν 4 ” 
yap ὀυκέτι πορνεία τὸ πρᾶγμα ἐστι. Τί δέ ἐστιν, Ki δὲ ὁ ἄπιστος 
/ > > 7 7 \ “ » ee la > / 
χωρίζεται; Olov εἰ κελεύει σοι θύειν καὶ κοινωνεῖν αὐτῷ τῆς ἀσεβείας 
5 “ la \ \ 
διὰ τὸν γάμον, ἢ ἀναχωρεῖν, βέλτιον διασπασθῆναι τὸν γάμον, καὶ μὴ 
» Ν 
τὴν εὐσέβειαν. Διὸ ἐπήγαγην, Οὐ δεδούλωται ὁ ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἡ ἀδελφὴ 
Ἄ ΄ 
ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις. Εἰ καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν πυκτεύοι καὶ πολέμους 
παρέχοι διὰ τοῦτο, φησὶ, βέλτιον ἀπαλλαγῆναι. Τοῦτο γὰρ αἰνίττεται, 
lay r \ 
λέγων: ᾽ν δὲ εἰρήνῃ κέκληκεν ἡμᾶς ὁ Θεός. ᾿Κκεῖνος yap λοιπὸν τὴν 
αἰτιάν παρέσχεν, ὥσπερ καὶ ὃ πορνεύσας. Ti γὰρ οἶδας, γύναι, εἰ τὸν 
5 nan x 
ἄνδρα σώσεις ; Ipods τὸ, Μὴ ἀφιέτω ἀυτὸν, τοῦτο πάλιν. Εἰ yap μὴ 
V6 vad / 4 Ν \ / / \ é Ἂς 
στασιάζει, μένε, φησίν" ἔχει γὰρ καὶ κέρδος" μένε, καὶ παράινει καὶ 
συμβούλευε καὶ πεῖθε" οὐδεὶς γὰρ οὕτω διδάσκαλος ἰσχύσαι δυνήσεται, 
«ς 7 οὖ ” 5 / > / 5 ἊΝ Ν ἊΨ 5 “- ) 
ὡς γυνή. Καὶ οὔτε ἀνάγκην ἐπιτίθησιν αὐτῇ καὶ πάντως ἀπαιτεῖ παρ 
αὐτῆς τὸ πρᾶγμα, ἵνα μὴ πάλιν φυρτικώτερον ἐργάσηται, οὔτε ἀπογι- 
νώσκειν κελεύει, ἀλλ᾽ ἀφίησιν αὐτὸ τῇ τοῦ μέλλοντος ἀδηλίᾳ μετέωρον, 
λέγων" Τί γὰρ οἶδας, γύναι, εἰ τὸν ἄνδρα σώσεις ; καὶ τί οἶδας, ἄνερ, 
εἰ τὴν γυναῖκα σώσεις ; 
Ν > se / @i 3 / 2 Ψ Ke Ἂ Υ 
ἕκαστος ἐν τῇ κλήσει ἣ ἐκλήθη, ἐν ταύτῃ μενέτω. Ἰ᾽ υναῖκα ἔχων 
ἄπιστον ἐκλήθης ; μένε ἔχων᾽ μὴ διὰ τὴν πίστιν ἐκβάλῃς τὴν γυναῖκα 
ΣΥΝ ΧΟ ΠΗ) ΤῊ ay ΠΕΣ Ταμον ; 


Hom, σῶς Ὁ 41 Cor, (χὰ Vitrwo’,) 
᾿Επεὶ καὶ δεύτερον συγχωρεῖ γάμον, μόνον “Ev Κυρίῳ λέγων. Ti oe 


> 2 
ἐστιν, Ky Κυρίῳ; Μετὰ σωφροσύνης, μετὰ κοσμιότητος. 


S. AMBROSE. 
Expositio Evangelit secundum Lucam, lib. viii. § 2 (in xvi. 18).? 


Omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam et ducit alteram moechatur : 
et qui dimissam a viro ducit, moechatur. Prius dicendum arbitror 
de lege conjugi, ut postea de prohibendo divortio disputemus, 
Quidam enim putant omne conjugium a Deo esse, maxime quia 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom, x. p. 160. 2 Ibid. tom. i. p. 1765. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 478 


scriptum est: Quae Deus conjunuit, homo non separet. Ergo si 
omne conjugium a Deo est, omne conjugium non licet solvi. Et 
quomodo Apostolus dixit: Quod δὲ infidelis discedit, discedat. 
In quo et mirabiliter noluit apud Christianos causam residere 
divortii, et ostendit non a Deo omne conjugium; neque enim 
Christianae gentilibus Dei judicio copulantur: cum Lex prohibeat. 

Sed occurrit illud quod ait Salomon: Domum et substantium 
patres partiuntur filiis: a Deo autem praeparabitur viro uxor. 
Quod qui in Graeco legit, non putat esse contrarium. Bene enim 
dixit Graecus ἁρμόσεται; harmonia enim conveniens et apta rerum 
omnium dicitur commissa connexio, Harmonia est cum fistulae 
organi per ordinem copulatae, legitimae tenent gratiam cantilenae, 
chordarumque aptus servat ordo concordiam. Itaque non habent 
harmoniam suam nuptiae, quando christiano viro gentilis mulier non 
legitime copulatur. Ergo ubi nuptiae harmonia: ubi harmonia Deus 
jungit. Ubi harmonia non est, pugna atque dissensio est; quae non 
est a Deo, quia Deus charitas est. 


Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, lib. vii. § 8. 


Ostendit autem hic locus, quae propter fragilitatem humanam 
scripta sunt, non a Deo scripta. Unde et Apostolus, Denuntio, 
inquit, non ego sed Dominus, uxorem a viro non discedere. Et infra, 
Caeteris, inquit, ego dico, non Dominus: si quis frater infidelem 
habet uxorem, et relinquit eam. Itaque ubi est impar conjugium, 
lex Dei non est. Et addidit, Quod st infidelis discedit, discedat. 
Simul idem Apostolus negavit legis esse divinae, ut conjugium quali- 
cumque solvatur ; nec ipse praecepit, nec dedit deserenti auctoritatem, 
sed culpam abstulit destituto. Haec moraliter. 


De Abraham, lib. 1...c., 9.1 


Cum sancto enim sanctus eris et cum perverso perverteris. Si hoc 
in 8115, quanto magis in conjugio, ubi una caro, et unus spiritus est. 
(Juomodo autem potest congruere charitas, si discrepet fides: Et ideo 
cave, Christiane, gentili aut Judaeo filiam tuam tradere, Cave, 
inquam, gentilem aut Judaeam atque alienigenam, hoc est, haereticam, 
et omnem alienam a fide tua uxorem arcessas tibi. Prima conjugii 
fides castitatis gratia est. Si idola colat quorum praedicantur 
adulteria, si Christum neget qui praeceptor et remunerator est 
pudicitiae, quomodo potest diligere pudicitiam? Si Christiana sit, 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom, i. p. 450. 


474. HOLY MATRIMONY 


non est satis, nisi ambo initiati sitis sacramento baptismatis. 
Simul ad orationem nocte vobis surgendum est, et conjunctis 
precibus obsecrandus Deus. Accedit aliud insigne castimoniae, si 
credas a Deo tuo tibi quod sortitus es, conjugium datum. Unde et 
Salomon ait: A Deo, inquit, praeparabitur viro uxor, (Prov. xix. 
14.) Non possunt hoc dispares fide credere, ut ab eo quem non 
colit, putet sibi connubii impartitam gratiam. Ratio docet, sed 
amplius exempla commonent. Saepe illecebra muliebris decepit 
etiam fortiores maritos, et a religione fecit discedere. Et ideo tu 
vel amori consule, vel errorem cave. Primum ergo in conjugio 
religio quaeritur. Ideo Abraham proximam quaesivit dare filio suo. 


Quo proficiat hoe considera diligentius. Non licet {101 accipere 
alienigenam. Sane si Christianam se faciat, laudem habebis ex ea. 
Ne te quoque, si recusaverit Christiana fieri, studium nuptiarum a 
fide deflectat, instruit lectio. Abraham sequentem deduci admonuit, 
residentem non expeti, nec eo filium-suum pergere. 


Ep. wix. to Vigrlius.} 

Primum omnium cognosce Ecclesiam Domini tibi commissam ; 
ideoque vitandum semper, ne quid obrepat offensionis, et fiat velut 
commune corpus ejus gentilium admixtione. Unde Scriptura tibi 
dicit: Ne accipias uxorem de filiabus Chananaeorum, sed vade in 
Mesopotamiam, in domum Bathuel, id est domum sapientiae; et 
ejus tibi acquire copulam. Mesopotamia autem regio est in partibus 
Orientis, quae duobus maximis per ea locorum Euphrate et Tigri 
fluminibus circumvenitur, quibus origo est in Armeniae locis. In- 
fluunt autem diverso meatu in mare Rubrum; et ideo Mesopotamiae 
nomine signatur figura Ecclesiae, quae maximis fluentorum pru- 
dentiae irriguis atque justitiae fecundat mentes fidelium, quibus 
sacri baptismatis, cujus typus praecessit in Rubro mari, infundit 
gratiam, culpamque abluit. Doce ergo plebem, ut non ex alienigenis, 
sed ex domibus Christianis conjugii quaeratur copula. 

Sed prope nihil gravius quam copulari alienigenae, ubi et libidinis 
et discordiae incentiva, et sacrilegii flagitia conflantur. Nam cum 
ipsum conjugium velamine sacerdotali, et benedictione sanctificari 
oporteat ; quomodo potest conjugium dici, ubi non est fidei concordia ? 
Cum oratio communis esse debeat, quomodo inter dispares devotione 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom, ii. p. 983. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 475 


potest esse conjugii communis charitas? Saepe plerique capti amore 
feminarum fidem suam prodiderunt; ut patrum populus in Beel- 
phegor. Unde Phinees, arrepto gladio, interfecit Hebraeum et 
Madianiten feminam et mitigavit indignationem divinam, ne totus 
populus exstingueretur. 

Quid de pluribus exemplis loquar? Ex multis unum proferam, et 
ejus commemoratione liqueat, quam perniciosam sit alienigenae 
mulieris adscivisse copulam. Quis fortior, et ab incunabulis suis 
et munitior Dei spiritu, quam Nazaraeus Samson. Et ipse proditus 
est, et ipse per mulierem non potuit suam tenere gratiam. 

Hoc ergo exemplo liquet alienigenarum consortia refugienda; ne 
pro charitate conjugii proditionis insidiae succedant. 


S. JEROME. 
Epistola ad Ageruchiam de Monogamia.' 

Quodque addidit, tantum in Domino, amputat Ethnicorum conjugia, 
de quibus in alio loco dixerat, Nolite jugum ducere cum infidelibus. 
(2 Cor. vi. 14, sgg.) Ne scilicet aremus in bove et asino: ne tunica 
nuptialis vario sit texta subtegmine. 


Epistola ad Eustochium, De custodia virginitatis. 3 
Si autem et illae quae virgines sunt, ob alias tamen culpas, 
virginitate corporum non salvantur: quid Ποὺ ills, quae prostituerunt 
membra Christi, et mutaverunt templum Sancti Spiritus in lupanar. 


Adversus Jovinianum, lib. 1. 7.3 
Inter caetera Corinthii per litteras quaesierant. ... Et cum e 
duobus Ethnicis unus credidisset in Christum, utrumnam credens 
relinqueret non credentem? Etsi essent ducendae uxores, Christianas 
tantum accipi juberet, an et Ethnicas ? 


10. (Commenting on vi. 10.) 

Docet enim juxta sententiam Domini, uxorem, excepta causa 
fornicationis, non repudiandam, et repudiatam, vivo marito, alteri 
non nubere, aut certe viro suo reconciliari debere. His autem quos 
in matrimonio deprehendisset fides, hoc est, si unus credidisset e 
duobus, praecipit ne credens repudiet non credentem. Causisque 
expositis, quod candidatus fidei sit infidelis, si nolit a credente 
discedere: e contrario jubet, si infidelis repudiet fidelem propter 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1046. 2 Ihid. p. 397. 
g p Ρ 
3 Ibid. tom, ii. pp. 218, 228. 


470 HOLY MATRIMONY 


fidem Christi, discedere debere credentem, ne conjugem praeferat 
Christo, cui etiam anima postponenda est. At nunc _pleraeque 
contemnentes Apostoli jussionem, junguntur gentilibus, et templa 
Christi idolis prostituunt; nec intelligunt se corporis ejus partem 
esse, cujus et costae sunt. Ignoscit Apostolus infidelium conjunctioni, 
quae habentes maritos, in Christum postea crediderunt; non _ his, 
quae cum Christianae essent, nupserunt gentilibus, ad quas alibi 
loquitur. Nolite jugum ducere cum infidelibus. Quae enim 
participatio justitiae cum iniquitate? aut quae societas luct ad 
tenebras? Quae autem conventio Christi ad Belial? aut quae pars 
fideli cum infideli? Qui autem consensus templo Det cum idolis ? 
Vos enim estis templum Dei vivi. Licet enim in me saevituras sciam 
plurimas matronarum: licet eadem impudentia qua Dominum con- 
tempserunt, in me pulicem et Christianorum minimum debacchaturas: 
tamen dicam quod sentio: loquar quod me Apostolus docuit, non 
illas justitiae esse, sed iniquitatis; non lucis, sed tenebrarum ; non 
Christi sed Belial; non templa Dei viventis, sed fana et idola 
mortuorum. Vis apertius discere, quod Christianae omnino non 
liceat Ethnico nubere. Audi eumdem Apostolum, Mulier, inquit, 
alligata est quanto tempore vir ejus vivit ; quod si dormierit vir ejus, 
liberata est: cui vult nubat, tantum in Domino, id est, Christiano. 
Qui secundas tertiasque nuptias concedit in Domino, primas cum 
Ethnico prohibet. 


Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, ο, 1.4 


Multi superstitiosius magis quam verius, etiam eos qui cum Gentiles 
fuerint, et unam uxorem habuerint, qua amissa, post baptismum 
Christi, alteram duxerint, putant in sacerdotio non legendos: cum 
utique si hoc observandum sit, illi magis ab episcopatu arceri debeant, 
qui vagam per meretrices ante exercentes libidinem, unam regenerati 
uxorem acceperint; et multo detestabilius sit fornicatum esse cum 
pluribus, quam digamum reperiri; quia in alio infelicitas matrimonii 
est, in alio ad peccanduim prona lascivia. 


AMBROSIASTER. 
{ΠΡ lBCormyilaelo ).- 
Si quis frater uxorem habet infidelem, et haec consentit habitare cum 
illo, non dimittat illam. Ht δὲ qua mulier habet virum infidelem, et 
hie consentit habitare cum illa, non relinquat virum. Hoe dixit, quia 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 564. 5. Lbid. S, Ambrose, tom, ii. 2. p, 218. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 477 


inter illa primordia, cum ambo utique essent gentiles, fiebat ut unus 
ex his crederet: et quia horrebant perfidi culturam Dei, similiter et 
credentes contaminationem praeteriti erroris; ideo praecipit, ut si 
contenti essent habitare cum immutatis, contenti essent et fideles 
esse cum illis. 

Sanctijicatus est enim vir infidelis per uxorem fidelem, et sanctificata 
est mulier infidelis ex viro fideli. Uabere illos beneficium bonae 
voluntatis ostendit; quia honorem nominis Christi non habent: et 
ad tuitionem hospitii pertinet, in quo signum fit crucis, quo mors 
victa est; sanctificatio enim est. 

Alioquin filit vestrt immundi essent. Immundi essent filii eorum, si 
dimitterent volentes habitare secum, et aliis se copularent; essent 
enim adulteri, ac per hoc et filii eorum spurii; ideo immundi. 
Nune autem sancti sunt. Sancti sunt; quia de conjugiis licitis 
nati sunt: et quia sub creatoris veneratione nati sunt propensiore 
ex parte. Quia sicut quidquid per dedicationem idolorum fit, 
immundum est; ita quidquid sub Dei creatoris professione fit, 
sanctum est. 

Qnod st infidelis discedit, discedat. Propositum religionis, custodit, 
praecipiendo ne christiani relinquant conjugia: sed si infidelis odio 
Dei discedit, fidelis non erit reus dissoluti matrimoni; major enim 
causa Dei est, quam matrimonil. 

Non est enim frater aut soror servituti subjectus in hujusmodt. 
Hoc est, non debetur reverentia conjugii ei, qui horret auctorem 
conjugil ; non enim ratum est matrimonium, quod sine Dei devotione 
est: ac per hoc non est peccatum ei, qui dimittitur propter Deun, si 
alii se junxerit. Contumelia enim Creatoris solvit jus matrimonii 
circa eum, qui relinquitur, ne accusetur alii copulatus. Infidelis 
autem discedens, et in Deum et in matrimonium peccare dignoscitur ; 
quia noluit sub Dei devotione habere conjugium. Itaque non est ei 
fides servanda conjugii, quia ideo recessit ne audiret auctorem esse 
christianorum Deum conjugii. Nam si Esdras dimitti fecit uxores 
aut viros infideles ; ut propitius fieret Deus, nec iratus esset, si alias 
ex genere suo acciperent; non enim ita praeceptum his est, ut 
remissis istis, alias minime ducerent: quanto magis si infidelis 
discesserit liberum habebit arbitrium, si voluerit nubere legis suae 
viro? Illud enim non debet imputari matrimonium, quod extra 
decretum Dei factum est: sed cum post cognoscit et dolet se 
deliquisse, se emendat, ut veniam mereatur. Si autem ambo 
crediderint, per cognitionem Dei confirmant conjugium. 


478 HOLY MATRIMONY 


In pace autem vocavit nos Deus. Verum est, quia non oportet 
litigare cum eo, qui discedit ; quia odio Dei discedit, ac per hoc nec 
dignus habendus est. 


Councint or Hippo (a.d. 393).? 
Canon 12. 


Ut gentilibus vel etiam hereticis et schismaticis filii episcoporum 
vel quorumlibet clericorum matrimonio non conjungantur, 


S, AUGUSTINE. 
De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. 1. ὃ 44.? 


Considerandum est itaque quatenus fornicationem intelligere de- 
beamus, et consulendus, ut coeperamus, Apostolus. Sequitur enim 
et dicit, Caeteris autem ego dico non Dominus. Hic primo videndum 
est, quibus caeferis; dicebat enim superius ex Domini persona lis 
qui sunt in conjugio, nunc vero ex sua persona caeteris dicit: ergo 
fortasse 115. qui non sunt in conjugio: sed non hoe sequitur. Ita 
enim subjungit: Si quis frater habet uxorem infidelem, et haec 
consentit habitare cum illo, non dimittat illam. Ergo etiam nune 
iis dicit qui sunt in conjugio. Quid sibi ergo vult quod ait, cueteris. 
nisi quia superius eis loquebatur, qui sic copulati erant, ut pariter in 
fide Christi essent; caeteris vero nunc dicit, id est eis qui sic 
copulati sunt, ut non ambo fideles sint? Sed quid eis dicit? Si 
quis frater habet wxorem infidelem, et haec consentit habitare cum illo. 
non dimittat illam.: et si qua mulier habet virum infidelem, et hic 
consentit habitare cum tla, non dimittat virum. Si ergo non prae- 
cipit ex Domini persona, sed ex sua persona monet, ita est hoc 
bonum, ut si quis aliter fecerit, non sit praecepti transgressor: sicut 
de virginibus paulo post dicit, praeceptum Domini se non habere ; 
consilium autem dare; atque ita laudat virginitatem, ut arripiat eam 
qui voluerit, non tamen ut si non fecerit, contra praeceptum fecisse 
judicetur. Aliud enim est quod jubetur, aliud quod monetur, aliud 
quod ignoscitur. Jubetur mulier ἃ viro non discedere; quod si dis- 
cesserit, manere innuptam aut viro suo reconciliari: aliter ergo non 
licet facere. Monetur autem vir fidelis, si habet uxorem infidelem 
consentientem secum habitare, non eam dimittere: licet ergo et 
dimittere ; quia non est praeceptum Domini, ne dimittat, sed con- 
silium Apostol: sicut monetur virgo non nubere; sed si nupserit, 





1 Mansi, tom ili. p. 921. 
2 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 1251. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 479 


consilium quidem non tenebit, sed contra praeceptum non faciet. 
Ignoscitur cum dicitur, Hoc autem dico secundum veniam, non 
secundum imperium. GQuapropter, si licet ut dimittatur conjux 
infidelis, quamvis melius sit non dimittere, et tamen non licet 
secundum praeceptum Domini ut dimittatur conjux nisi causa 
fornicationis, fornicatio est etiam ipsa infidelitas. 

§ 45. Quid enim tu dicis, Apostole? Certe ut vir fidelis con- 
sentientem secum habitare mulierem infidelem non dimittat. Ita, 
inquit. Cum ergo hoc et Dominus praecipiat, ne dimittat vir 
uxorem, nisi causa fornicationis, quare hic dicis, ἴσο dico, non 
Dominus? Quia scilicet idololatria quam sequuntur infideles, et 
quaelibet noxia superstitio, fornicatio est. Dominus autem per- 
misit causa fornicationis uxorem dimitti: sed quia permisit non 
jussit, dedit loco Apostolo monendi, ut qui voluerit non dimittat 
uxorem infidelem, quo sic fortasse possit fieri fidelis. Sanctzficatus 
est enim, inquit, vir infidelis in uxore,; et sanctificata est mulier 
infidelis in fratre. Credo, jam provenerat ut nonnullae feminae 
per viros fideles, et viri per uxores fideles in fidem venirent; et 
quamvis non dicens nomina, exemplis tamen hortatus est, ad con- 
firmandum consilium suum. Deinde sequitur: Aliaquin πὶ vestri 
ammundt essent , nunc autem sancti sunt. Jam enim erant parvuli 
christiani, qui sive auctore uno ex parentibus, sive utroque con- 
sentiente sanctificati erant: quod non fieret, nisi uno credente 
dissociaretur conjugium, et non toleraretur infidelitas conjugis usque 
ad opportunitatem credendi. Hoc est ergo consilium ejus, cui credo 
dictum esse, δὲ quid supererogaverts, rediens reddam ttbi. 


De Diversis Quaestionibus lexaiii 

De conjugio, in eo quod Dominus ait: δὲ quis dimisertt uxorem 

suam, excepta causa fornicationrs, etc. 

Si Dominus dimittendae conjugis solam causam fornicationis ad- 
mittit, et paganum conjugium dimitti non prohibet, consequens est ut 
paganismus fornicatio deputetur. Solam autem fornicationis causam 
exceptam facere Dominum, cum de dimittenda conjuge loquitur in 
Evangelio, manifestum est. Paganum vero conjugium hine non pro- 
hibetur dimitti, quia cum Apostolus de hac re consilium daret, ut 
fidelis volentem secum esse conjugem infidelem, non dimittat, ait, 
Ego dico, non Dominus: ut Dominus intelligatur, non quidem jubere 
ut dimittatur, ne contra jussum ejus consilium dare videatur Aposto- 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 100. 


480 HOLY MATRIMONY 


lus, sed tamen permittere; ut nemo in ea re jussionis necessitate 
teneatur, sed consilii voluntate lbere faciat. Verumtamen si quis- 
quam asserat solam illam fornicationem Dominum admittere ad causam 
relinquendae conjugis, quae vulgo dicitur fornicatio, id est quae con- 
cubitu illicito perpetratur: hoc potest dicere, Dominum cum de hac 
re loqueretur, de utroque fideli dixisse, et marito et uxore, ut si ambo 
fideles sint, neutri liceat alterum relinquere, nisi causa fornicationis ; 
ubi non potest paganismus intelligi, quia uterque fidelis est. Sic 
enim et Apostolus videtur distinguere, cum ait: His autem qui in 
conjugio sunt praecipio, non ego, sed Dominus, uxorem a viro non 
discedere , quod si recesserit, manere innuptam, aut viro suo recon- 
ciliart. Ubi etiam intelligitur quod si una illa causa, qua sola 
relectio conjugii permittitur, mulier a viro recesserit, innupta per- 
severare debet: aut si se non continet, viro potius reconciliari vel 
correcto vel certe tolerando, quam alteri nubere. Sequitur autem, et 
dicit, Et vir uxorem non dimittat: breviter eamdem formam intimans 
in viro, quam praecipiebat in femina. Quibus ex praecepto Domini 
insinuatis ita sequitur: Caeteris autem ego dico, non Dominus, Si quis 
Srater habet uxorem infidelem, et haec consentit habitare cum illo, non 
dimittat illam.: et mulier si habet virum infidelem, et hic consentit 
halitare cum illa, non dimittat virum. Ubi dat intelligi Dominum 
de his locutum, ut neuter alterum dimitteret, si fideles ambo essent. 


Ep. 157, ad Hilarium, c. 31.3 

Ambobus quippe christianis Dominus praecepit ne quisquam 
dimittat uxorem, excepta causa fornicationis. Ubi autem quaelibet 
ex eis persona infidelis est, consilium Apostoli attendatur: Ut si 
infidelis consentit habitare cum, viro fideli, vir non dimittat uxorem. 
Siniliter et uxor fidelis virum, si cum illa habitare consenserit. Quod 
si infidelis, inquit, descedit, discedat: non est enim servituti subjectus 
Frater aut soror in hujusmodi: id est, si infidelis noluerit esse cum 
conjuge fideli, hic agnoscat fidelis suam libertatem, ne ita se subjectum 
deputet servituti ut ipsam dimittat fidem, ne conjugem amittat 


infidelem. ee ἌΝ ae 
De conjugtis adulterinis, lib. i. 2 


Cap. xili. 
Dimittere infideles conjuges non licere sentit Pollentius,; licere sed 
non expedire dicit Augustinus. 
Jam nune illud videamus quod ait Apostolus, Caeteris autem ego 
dico, non Dominus: ad imparia scilicet, hoc est, ubi non ambo 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 689. * Ibid, tom. vi. p. 459. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 481 


christiani fuerant, conjugia loquitur. Quod mihi visum est eum 
monendo discisse. Quia enim conjux fidelis relinquere conjugem 
licite potuit infidelem, ideo fieri hoc non Dominus, sed Apostolus 
prohibet. Quod enim Dominus prohibet, fieri omnino non licet. 
Monet ergo Apostolus, quo possit esse multorum occasio lucran- 
dorum, ut fideles conjuges in relinquendis infidelibus permissa 
licentia non utantur. Tibi autem videtur infideles quoque dimitti 
a fidelibus non licere, quia hoe vetat Apostolus: cum ego dicam 
licere, quia hoc non vetat Dominus; non tamen expedire, quia hoe 
ne fiat, monet Apostolus: qui reddit etiam rationem cur fieri non 
expediat, quamvis liceat. Quid enim scis, inquit, mulier, sz virum 
salvum facies? aut unde scis, vir, st uxorem salvam facies? Cum 
etiam superius dixisset, Sanctificatus est enim vir infidelis in uxore, 
et sanctificata est mulier infidelis in fratre, hoc est, in christiano : 
alioquin filti vestri, inquit, ¢mmundi essent ; nune autem sancti sunt. 
Sic ad lucrandos conjuges et filios Christo, etiam exemplis quae jam 
provenerant, videtur hortatus. Cur ergo non expediat etiam infideles 
conjuges dimitti a fidelibus, causa evidenter expressa est. Non enim 
propter vinculum cum talibus conjugale servandum sed ut acqui- 
rantur in Christum, recedi ab infidelibus conjugibus Apostolus vetat. 


Cap. xiv. 


Multa non jussa praescripto legis, facienda sunt consilio charitatis, 


τ ΣΎ: 


Licita quaedam quae non expediunt. 


Porro discedere ab infideli conjuge licet, sed non expedit: manere 
autem cum illo, si cohabitare consentit, et licet et expedit; quia si 
non liceret, expedire non posset. Potest ergo aliquid licere et non 
expedire: expedire autem quod non licet non potest. Ac per hoc 
non omnia licita expediunt; omnia autem illicita non expediunt. 


Cap. Xvi. 
Licitum quod non expedit, differt ab illictto, tta ut illud si fiat, non 
sit peccatum, quamis non sit faciendum. 


Zr 


482 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Cap. xvli. 


Unde differt id quod licet et non expedit, ab eo quod ideo non expedit 
quia non licet. Dimittere conjugem infidelem, nec vetat nec jubet 
Christus, monet Paulus ne fiat. 


Quocirea si dimittere infidelem conjugem non liceret, hoc fieri 
Dominus prohiberet, neque id Apostolus prohibens diceret, Hgo dico, 
non Dominus. Nam si propter fornicationem carnis permittitur homo 
a conjuge separari; quanto magis in conjuge mentis fornicatio detes- 
tanda est? id est infidelitas, de qua scriptum est, Quoniam ecce qut 
longe se faciunt a te, peribunt; perdidisti omnem qui fornicatur 
abs te. 

Cap. xviil. 


Cur sicut Israelitis uxores alienigenas, non ita Christianis infideles 
jubetur deserere. Consilium Pauli tanquam Christi acciptendum. 
Id quod licet, quandoque expedit, quandoque non. Discessio ab 
infideli conjuge non prohibita praecepto legis, sed consilio 
charitatis. 

Sed quia ita licitum est, ut non expediat: ne propter conjugum 
separationes offensi homines, ipsam doctrinam salutis, qua illicita 
prohibentur, exhorreant, ac sic pejores atque perituri in eadem 
infidelitate remaneant; intercedit Apostolus, et monendo fieri vetat 
quod ita licitum est ut non expediat. Sic enim recedere ab 
infidelibus uxoribus vel maritis, fideles viri vel feminae non prohi- 
bentur a Domino, ut neque jubeantur. Nam si dimittere tales 
conjuges jJuberentur, nullus esset locus consilio monentis Apostoli ne 
hoc fieret. Nullo modo enim quod Dominus jubet, servus bonus fieri 
prohiberet. 


. Φ . . e 


Cum vero coepisset Gentibus Evangelium praedicari, jam conjunctos 
Gentiles Gentilibus comperit conjuges: ex quibus si non ambo 
erederent, sed unus aut una infidelis cum fideli consentiret habitare, 
nec prohiberi a Domino debuit fidelis infidelem dimittere, nec juberi : 
ideo scilicet non prohiberi, quia justitia permittit a fornicante 
discedere, et infidelis hominis fornicatio est major in corde; nec vera 
ejus pudicitia cum conjuge dici potest, quia Omne quod non est ex 
fide, peccatum est: quamvis veram fidelis habeat pudicitiam etiam 
cum infideli conjuge, qui non habet veram. Ideo autem nec juberi 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 483 


debuerunt fideles ab infidelibus separari, quia non contra jussionem 
Domini Gentiles fuerant ambo conjuncti. 

Quoniam ergo ab infideli fidelem discedere nec prohibet nec jubet 
Dominus, ideo ut non discedat, Apostolus dicit, non Dominus: 
habens utique Spiritum Sanctum, in quo dare posset utile et fidele 
consilium. 


. . . . . 


Sicut est, unde jam diu loquimur discessio fidelis conjugis ab in- 
fideli, quam non prohibet Dominus praecepto legis, quia coram illo 
injusta non est; sed prohibet Apostolus consilio charitatis, quia 
infidelibus affert impedimentum salutis: non solum quia _pernicio- 
sissime scandalizantur offensi; verum etiam quia in alia conjugia cum 
ceciderint viventibus eis a quibus dimittuntur, adulterinis nexibus 
colligati difficillime resolvuntur.! 


Cap. xix. 
Consilium non nubendi, de eo esse quod amplius expedit ; at consilium 
non dimittendi infidelem, de eo esse cujus contrarium non expedit. 


Ideo hic, ubi id quod licet non expedit, non potest dici, Si 
dimiserit infidelem, bene facit; si non dimiserit, melius facit: sicut 
dictum est, Qu: dat nuptum, bene facit ; et qui non dat nuptum, 
melius facit. Quoniam illud non solum utrumque pariter licet, 
unde ad nihil horum praecepto Domini quisque compellitur, sed 
etiam utrumque expedit, aliud minus aliud amplius; unde ad id 
quod amplius expedit, consilio Apostoli, quicunque potest capere, 
provocatur. Hoc autem ubi de dimittendo vel non dimittendo 
infidel: conjugio quaeritur, utrumque quidem pariter licitum est per 
justitiam quae coram Domino est, et ideo nihil horum Dominus pro- 
hibet: sed non utrumque expedit, propter infirmitatis hominum, et 
ideo id quod non expedit, Apostolus prohibet; dante sibi Domino 
liberum prohibendi locum, quia neque id quod monet Apostolus, 
prohibet Dominus, neque id quod prohibet Apostolus, jubet Dominus. 
Quod nisi ita esset, neque contra prohibitionem Domini Apostolus 
aliquid moneret, neque contra jussionem ejus aliquid prohiberet. 


De conjuge infideli dimittendo vel non dimittendo, quoniam unum 
horum non expedit, aliud expedit, dici non oportet. Qui dimittit, 
bene facit ; et qui non dimittit, melius facit: sed dici oportet, Non 





1 Aliquot MSS., ab infidelitate difficillime resolyuntur, 
214 


484 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dimittat, quia, etsi licet, non expedit. Sic ergo possumus dicere 
melius esse infidelem conjugem non dimittere, quamvis liceat et 
dimittere ; quemadmodum recte dicimus melius esse quod et licet et 
expedit, quam id quod licet, nec expedit. 


Cap. xx. 


De conjugibus infidelibus non dimittendis consilium Apostoli est, non 
praeceptum.  Monitum hic loci de re libera esse, alia tamen 
esse monita Apostoli de re imperata. 


His de causis factum est ut exponens Domini sermonem, quem 
prolixum in monte habuit, ubi ventum est ad quaestionem de con- 
jugibus dimittendis, vel non dimittendis, adhibitis etiam apostolicis 
testimoniis, dicerem consilium esse Apostoli, non praeceptum Domini, 
ubi ait, Caeteris autem ego dico, non Dominus, monens eos qui 
haberent conjuges infideles, ut consentientes habitare secum non 
dimitterent. Quod utique ideo monendum, non jubendum fuit, quia 
non tanto pondere prohibendi sunt homines facere licita, quamvis 
non expediant, quanto pondere prohibentur illicita. 


ἜΠΤεν 221. 


De conjugtis cum infidelibus. Pollentit sententia discutitur. Aliam 
esse quaestionem de jam conjunctis, aliam de conjungendis. De 
jam conjunctis, non de jungendis agi in loco Apostoli citato. 
Iilicita et vetita a Domino nunquam expedit facere. 


Tu autem cui placet, ita non licere quod non vetat Dominus, sed 
Apostolus, quemadmodum non licet quod vetat Dominus, cum ex- 
ponere voluisses quid sibi vellet quod ait, Ego dico, non Dominus, 
cum alloqueretur fideles quibus essent conjuges infideles; dixisti, 
“‘Quia Dominus jussit ne conjugia sibimet diversae religionis copu- 
larentur”: et ipsum adhibuisti testimonium Domini dicentis, non 
accipies uxorem filio tuo a filiabus alienigenarum, ne traducat eum 
post deos suos, et pereat anima ejus. Addidisti etiam verba Apostoli, 
ubi dixit, Mulier alligata est, quamdiu vir ejus vivit. Quod st 
mortuus fuerit vir ejus, liberata est: cut vult nubat, tantum in 
Domino: quod ita exposuisti, ut adjungeres, “Id est, christiano.” 
Deinde secutus es, et aisti: “Hoc est ergo Domini praeceptum tam 
in Veteri quam in Novo Testamento, ut non nisi unius religionis et 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 485 


fidei conjugia sibi maneant copulata.” Si hoe ergo est Domino 
praeceptum tam in Veteri Testamento quam in novo, et hoc jubet 
Dominus, hoe docet Apostolus, ut non nisi unius religionis et fidei 
maneant copulata conjugia; quare contra hoc Domini jussum, contra 
doctrinam suam, contra praeceptum Testamentum Veteris et novi, 
jubet Apostolus ut diversae fidei conjugia maneant copulata? ‘ Quia 
Paulus,” inquis, “ Gentium praedicator et Apostolus, jam in conjugio 
positos, non solum monet, sed etiam jubet, ut si unus aut una a con- 
jugibus credidisset, alterum vel alteram non credentem, secum tamen 
habitare consentientem, non dimitteret.” His verbis tuis aliud hoc, 
aliud esse aliud, satis evidenter ostendis. Illud enim de his conjugiis 
agitur, quae sibi primitus copulantur, ne nubet femina non suae re- 
ligionis viro, vel vir talem ducat uxorem. ‘Id enim,” ut dicis, 
“jubet Deus, docet Apostolus, utrumque praecipit Testamentum.” 
Hoc autem diversum esse quis abnuat, ubi agitur non de conjungendis, 
sed de conjunctis? Ambo quippe unius ejusdemque infidelitatis 
fuerunt quando conjuncti sunt; sed Evangelium cum venisset, alter 
sine altera, vel altera sine altero credidit. Si ergo aliud est hoe, 


) 


quod sine scrupulo ullius dubitationis apparet, cur fidelem cum 
infideli in conjugio permanere, non et Dominus sicut Apostolus jubet. 


. . . . . 


Attende ut rem ipsam ftanquam in conspectu considerandam 
planiore sermone ponamus. Ecce conjuges duo, unius infidelitatis ; 
ita fuerunt quando conjuncti sunt: nulla de his quaestio est quae 
pertineat ad illam Domini jussionem doctrinamque apostolicam et 
praeceptum Testamenti Veteris et novi, quo prohibetur fidelis cum 
infideli copulare conjugium. Iam sunt conjuges, et adhue ambo 
sunt infideles; adhuc tales sunt quales fuerunt antequam junge- 
rentur, qualesque conjuncti sunt. Venit LEvangelii praedicator, 
credidit eorum aut tnus aut una; sed ita ut infidelis cum fideli 
habitare consentiat. Jubet fideli Dominus ne infidelem dimittat, 
au non jubet? Si dixeris, Jubet; reclamat Apostolus, go dico, 
non Dominus. Si dixeris, non jubet; causam requiro. Neque 
illam mihi responsurus es, quam tuis litteris indidisti, ‘‘Quia 
Dominus prohibet fideles infidelibus jungi.” Hic enim nullo modo 
est ista causa: de jam junctis loquimur, non de jungendis. Si ergo 
tu causam non iuvenisti cur non vetet Dominus quod vetat Apos- 
tolus; cernis enim jam, ut existimo, non esse ipsam quam esse 
putaveras. 


486 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Cap. XXv. 


Ibi beatior sit mulier sic permanendo, quae mortuo viro suo in 
potestate habet, cui vult nubere, tantwm tr Domino. Quod duobus 
modis accipi potest ; aut christiana permanens, aut christiano nubens. 
Non enim tempore revelati Testamenti Novi, in Evangelio vel ullis 
apostolicis Litteris sine ambiguitate declaratum esse recolo, utrum 
Dominus prohibuerit fideles infidelibus jungi. Quamvis beatissimus 
Cyprianus inde non dubitet, nec in levibus peccatis constituat, 
jungere cum infidelibus vinculum matrimonu, atque id esse dicat 
prostituere Gentilibus membra Christi. Sed quia de iis qui jam 
conjuncti sunt alia quaestio est; audiatur et hic Apostolus dicens: 
St quis frater habet uxorem infidelem, et haec consentit habitare cum 
ello, non dimittat tllam: et si qua mutier habet virum infidelem, et 
hie consentit habitare cum illa, non dimittat virum. Ft sie audiatur, 
ut quamvis fieri licitum sit, quia hoc non dicit Dominus; non tamen 
fiat, quia non expedit. Non enim omnia expedire quae licita sunt, 
apertissime docet Apostolus, sicut supra jam ostendimus. Propter 
quodlibet tamen fornicationis genus, sive carnis, sive spiritus, ubi 
et infidelitas intelligitur, et dimisso viro non licet alteri nubere, 
et dimissa uxore non licet alteram ducere ; quoniam Dominus nulla 
exceptione facta dicit, Οὐ uxor dimiserit virum suum et alii nupserit, 
moechatur; et, Omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam, et ducit alteram, 
noechatur. 

His ita pro meo modulo pertractatis atque discussis, quaestionem 
tamen de conjugiis obscurissimam et implicatissimam esse non nescio. 
Nec audeo profiteri omnes sinus ejus, vel in hoc opere, vel in alio 
me adhue explicasse, vel jam posse, si urgear, explicare.  Illud 
autem unde me itidem in alia scheda consulendum existimatis, 
seorsum etiam ego enodare curarem, si mihi aliud quam tibi visum 
est, videretur : cum vero eadem sit etiam nostra sententia, non hinc 
opus est diutius disputare. 


Cap. xxviii. 


Sed ut sermo noster ad hoc potius claudatur, unde sumpsit 
exordium, ego non solum alios catechumenos, verum etiam ipsos qui 
viventium conjugiis copulati retinent adulterina consortia, cum salvos 
corpore non admittamus ad Baptismum ; tamen si desperati jacuerint, 
nec pro se respondere potuerint, baptizandos puto, ut etiam hoc 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 487 


peccatum cum caeteris lavacro regenerationis abluatur. Quis enim 
novit utrum fortassis adulterinae carnis illecebra usque ad Baptismum 
statuerant detineri? Si autem ab illa desperatione recreati potuerint 
vivere, aut facient quod statuerunt, aut edocti obtemperabunt, aut de 
contemptoribus Ποῦ quod fieri etiam de baptizatis talibus debet. Quae 
autem Baptismatis, eadem reconciliationis est causa, si forte poeni- 
tentem finiendae vitae periculum praeoccupaverit. Nec ipsos enim 
ex hac vita sine arrha suae pacis exire velle debet mater Ecclesia. 


De Fide et Operibus.+ 
Cap. 2. 


Ad hane autem disputationem videntur impulsi, quod eos moverit 
non admitti ad Baptismum qui dimissis uxoribus alias duxerint, vel 
feminas quae dimissis viris aliis nupserint; quia haec non conjugia, 
sed adulteria esse Dominus Christus sine ulla dubitatione testatur. 
(Matt. xix. 9.) Cum enim negare non possent esse adulterium, quod 
Veritas adulterium esse sine ambage confirmat, eisque suffragari 
vellent ad accipiendum Baptismum, quos hujusmodi laqueo ita 
captos viderent, ut si non admitterentur ad Baptismum, sine ullo 
sacramento mallent vivere vel etiam mori, quam disrupto adulterii 
vinculo liberari: humana quadam miseratione commoti sunt ad 
eorum causam sic suscipiendam, ut omnes cum eis facinorosos et 
flagitiosos, etiam nulla prohibitione correptos, nulla instructione 
correctos, nulla poenitentia mutatos ad Baptismum admittendos esse 
censerent ; existimantes eos nisi fieret, in aeternum esse perituros; si 
autem fieret, etiam in illis malis perseverantes salvos per ignem 
futuros. 

Cape loi 

Cum (beatus Cyprianus) illud non taceat, et ad eosdem mores 
malos pertinere confirmet, jungere cum infidelibus vinculum 
matrimonii nihil aliud esse asserens, quam prostituere Gentilibus 
membra Christi; quae nostris temporibus jam non putantur esse 
peccata ; quoniam revera in novo Testamento nihil inde praeceptum 
est, et ideo aut licere creditum est, aut velut dubium derelictum. 


Q@uisquis etiam uxorem in adulterio deprehensam dimiserit, et 
aliam duxerit, non videtur aequandus eis qui excepta causa adulterii 
dimittunt et ducunt: et in ipsis divinis sententiis ita obscurum est 
utrum et iste, cui quidem sine dubio adulteram licet dimittere, 





1 Migne’s Ed, tom. vi. p. 198. 2 Ibid. p. 221, 


488 HOLY MATRIMONY 


adulter tamen habeatur si alteram duxerit, ut, quantum existimo, 
venialiter 101 quisque fallatur. 


De Bono Conjugali.} 
DibiLecav.cly Ὁ: 

Nee tamen nisi in civitate Dei nostri, in monte sancto ejus, talis 
est causa cum uxore. Caeterum aliter se habere jura Gentilium, 
quis ignorat; ubi interposito repudio, sine reatu aliquo ultionis 
humanae, et illa cui voluerit nubit, et 1116 quam voluerit ducit? 
Cui consuetudini simile aliquid, propter Israelitarum duritiam, 
videtur permisisse Moyses de libello repudu. Qua in re expro- 
bratio quam approbatio divortii magis apparet. 


Lib. 1. cap. 15.2 


Semel autem initum connubium in civitate Dei nostri, ubi etiam 
ex prima duorum hominum copula quoddam sacramentum nuptiae 
gerunt nullo modo potest nisi alicujus eorum morte dissolvi. 


Lib. i. cap. 24 § 32.3 

Bonum igitur nuptiarum per omnes gentes atque omnes homines in 
causa generandi est, et in fide castitatis: quod autem ad populum 
Dei pertinet, etiam in sanctitate Sacramenti, per quam nefas est 
etiam repudio discedentem alteri nubere, dum vir ejus vivit, nec 
saltem ipsa causa pariendi; quae cum sola sit qua nuptiae fiunt, 
nec ea re non subsequente propter quam fiunt, solvitur vinculum 
nuptiale nisi conjugis morte. Quemadmodum si fiat ordinatio 
cleri ad plebem congregandam, etiamsi plebis congregatio non 
subsequatur, manet tamen in illis ordinatis Sacramentum ordi- 
nationis; et si aliqua culpa quisquam ab officio removeatur, 
Sacramento Domino semel imposito non carebit, quamvis ad 
judicium permanente. Generationis itaque causa fieri nuptias, 
Apostolus ita testis est: Volo, inquit, juntores nubere. Et 
quasi ei diceretur, utquid? continuo subjecit, jilios procreare, 
matres famdvas esse, Ad fidem autem castitatis illud pertinet: Uxor 
non habet potestatem corporis sui, sed vir: similiter et vir non habet 
potestatem corporis sui, sed mulier. Ad Sacramenti sanctitatem 
illud: Uxorem a viro non discedere; quod si discesserit, manere 
innuptam, aut viro suo reconciliari: et vir uxorem non dimittat. 
Haec omnia bona sunt, propter quae nuptiae bonae sunt; proles, 
fides, Sacramentum. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 379. 2 Ibid. p. 980. 3 Ibid. p. 394. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 489 


De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, lib. 1. cap. 10.4 


Denique mortuo viro cum quo verum connubium fuit, fierl verum 
connubium potest cum quo prius adulterium fuit. lta manet inter 
viventes quiddam conjugale, quod nec separatio, nec cum altero 
copulatio possit auferre. Manet autein ad noxam criminis, non ad 
vinculum foederis: sicut apostatae anima velut de conjugio Christi 
recedens, etiam fide perdita Sacramentum fidei non amittit, quod 
lavacro regenerationis accepit. Redderetur enim procul dubio 
redeunti, si amisisset abscedens. Habet autem hoc qui recesserit 
ad cumulum supplicii, non ad meritum praemii. 


Cap. 17.? 


In nuptiis tamen bona nuptialia diligantur, proles, fides, sacra- 
mentum. Sed proles, non ut nascatur tantum, verum etiam ut 
renascatur: nascitur namque ad poenam, nisi renascatur ad vitam. 
Fides autem, non qualem habent inter se etiam infideles relantes 
carnem, Quis enim vir, quamlibet impius, vult adulteram uxorem ? 
aut quae mulier, quamlibet impia, vult adulterum virum? Hoc in 
connubio bonum naturale est quidem, carnale tamen. Sed membrum 
Christi conjugis adulterium conjugi debet timere non sibi; et a 
Christo operare fidei praemium, quam exhibet conjugi, Sacramentum 
vero, quod nec separati nec adulterati amittunt, conjuges concorditer 
casteque custodiant. Solum est enim quod etiam sterile conjugium 
tenet jure pietatis jam spe fecunditatis amissa propter quam fuerat 
copulatum. 

Ep. 253; to Benenatus.? 

Et quoniam audivi quod de negotio illo transigere cogitas, si verum 
est (quod miror, si verum est) nosti quemadmodum debeas episcopali 
paternitate catholicae Ecclesiae providere; ut non cum quolibet id 
agas, si tamen, ut dixi, verum est quod audivi, sed potius cum domo 
catholica, cujus non solum nullum adversitatem, verum etiam fidele 
adjutorium habere possit Ecclesia. 


Ep. 255; to Rusticus.+* 
Domino dilectissimo, et merito praedicabili ac suspiciendo filio 
Rustico, Augustinus, in Domino salutem. 
Quamvis tibi et universae domui tuae omnia bona optem, nec 
tantum ad felicitatem praesentis saeculi pertinentia, verum etiam ad 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. x. p. 420. 2 Tbid. p. 424. 
3 Ibid. tom, 11. p. 1069. 4 Ibid. p. 1070. 


490 HOLY MATRIMONY 


vitam futuram atque sempiternam, quae tibi nondum credenda 
persuasa est ; tamen quae me moveant, ut de puella quam petis, nihil 
adhuc audeam polliceri, quantum sufficere visum est, sancto fratri 
et coepiscopo meo Benenato rescripsi, domine dilectissime οὖ 
venerabilis fil. Si enim tu, cum certissime noveris, etlamsi nostrae 
absolutae sit potestatis quamlibet puellam in conjugium tradere, tradi 
a nobis christianam nisi christiano non posse ; nihil tamen mihi tale 
de filio tuo, quem adhue paganum audio, promittere voluisti: quanto 
magis ego, propter illa quae in epistola memorati fratris mei legere 
poteris, quidquam de illius puellae connubio spondere non debeo, 
etiamsi quod dixi de filio tuo non tantum promissum tenerem, sed 
jam etiam factum esse gauderem. 


S. Innocent _ I. 


Innocentius universis episcopis in Toletana synodo constitutis, dilec- 
tissimis fratribus, in Domino salutem (400 a.pv.).} 


Nee illud debere admitti, quod aliquanti pro defensione pravi 
erroris opponunt et asserunt, quod ante baptismum uxor accepta 
non debeat imputari, quia in baptismo omnia dimittuntur; non 
intelligentes hujusmodi, quod sola in baptismo peccata dimittuntur, 
nec uxorum numerus aboletur, Nam si ὦ Deo, ut scriptum est, 
praeparatur viro uxor, et quod Deus junxit, homo non separet,; et 
ipsi auctores generis humani in origine a Domino benedicuntur: 
quomodo inter peccata, ista creduntur posse dimitti. 


Si enim uxor ante baptismum accepta non ducitur in numerum, 
nec filii ex eadem suscepti inter filios poterunt numerari. Quod 
quam absurdum sit atque alienum, prudentia vestra melius aestimabit. 


Victricio episcopo Rotomagensi, ep. 11. cap. 26 (a.p. 404), 2 
Cap. v. 
Ut is qui mulierem (viduam) licet laicus duxerit uxorem sive 
ante baptismum, sive post baptismum, non admittatur ad clerum ; 


quia eodem videtur vitio exclusus. In baptismo enim crimina 
dimittuntur, non acceptae uxoris consortium relaxatur. 





1 Migne’s Ed. Patrologia Latina, tom. xx. Ῥ. 4938. 
2 Tbid. p. 474. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 491 


Cap. vi. 


Ne is, qui secundam duxit uxorem, clericus fiat: quia scriptum 
est Unius uxoris virum. Et iterum: Sacerdotes mei semel nubant. 
Et alibi: Sacerdotes met non nubent amplius. Ac ne ab aliquibus 
existimetur, ante baptismum si forte quis accepit uxorem, et ea 
de saeculo recedente, alteram duxerit, in baptismo esse dimissum, 
satis errat a regula, qui in baptismo hoc putat dimitti: remittuntur 
peccata, non acceptarum uxorum numerus aboletur: cum utique 
uxor ex legis praecepto ducatur in tantum, ut et in paradiso cum 
parentes humani generis conjungerentur, ab ipso Domino sint 
benedicti; et Salomon dicat, a Deo praeparabitur viro uxor. Quam 
formam etiam sacerdotes omnes servare usus ipse demonstrat 
Kcclesiae. Satis enim absurdum est aliquem credere, uxorem 
ante baptismum acceptam, post baptismum non computari; cum 
benedictio, quae per sacerdotem super nubentes imponitur, non 
materiam delinquendi dedisse, sed formam tenuisse legis a Deo 
antiquitus institutae doceatur. Quod si non putatur uxor esse com- 
putenda, quae ante baptismum geniti sunt, pro filiis habebuntur. 


Innocentius Rufo, Husebio, Hustathio, Claudio et caeteris, episcopis 
Macedonibus et diaconis in Domino salutem (A.D. 414).1 


Sed objicitur, quod in baptismo totum quidquid in vetere homine 
gestum est, sit solutum. Dicite mihi, cum pace vestra loquor: 
crimina tantum dimittuntur in baptismo, an et illa quae secundum 
Legis praecepta ac Dei instituta complentur? Uxorem ducere 
crimen est, aut non est crimen. Si cyimen est, ergo praefata venia 
dixerim; erit auctor in culpa, qui ut crimina committerent, in 
paradiso, cum ipse ita eos jungerit, benedixit. Si vero non est 
crimen, quia quod Deus junxit, nefas sit crimen appellari; et 
Salomon addidit: Htenim a Deo praeparatur viro uxor: quomodo 
creditur inter crimina esse dimissum, quod Deo auctore legitur 
consummatum ἢ 

Quid de talium filiis percensetur numquid non erunt admittendi in 
haereditatis consortio, qui ex ea suscepti sunt, quae ante baptismum 
fuit uxor? eruntque appellandi vel naturales vel spurii; quia non 
est legitimum matrimonium, nisi illud, ut vobis videtur, quod post 
baptismum assumitur? Ipse Dominus, cum interrogaretur a Judaeis 
si liceret dimittere uxorem, atque exponeret fieri non debere, 


1 Migne’s Ed, Pat. Lat. tom. xx. p. 526. 


492 HOLY MATRIMONY 


addidit: Quod ergo Deus junxit, homo non separet. Ac ne de his 
locutus esse credatur, quae post baptismum sortiuntur, meminerint 
hoe et a Judaeis interrogatum, et Judaeis esse responsum. uaero, 
et sollicitus quaero, si una eademque sit uxor ejus qui ante 
catechumenus, postea sit fidelis, filiosque ex ea, cum esset catechu- 
menus, susceperit, ac postea alios, cum fidelis: utrum sint fratres 
appellandi, an non habeant postea, defuncto patre herciscundae 
haereditatis consortium, quibus filiorum nomen creditur abstulisse 
regeneratio spiritalis? Quod cum ita sentire atque judicare ab- 
surdum est, quae (malum) ratio est hoc defendi, et vacua opinione 
magis jactari, quam aliqua auctoritate roborari, cum non _possit 
inter peccata deputari, quod Lex praecepit, et Deus junxit ? 


THEODORET. 
In 1 Cor. vit. Σὰ 14} 
Οὐκ ἄπιστον γυναῖκα νομοθετεῖ λαμβά ἡδὲ ἀπίστῳ ἀνδρὶ ὴ 
Ύ μ μβάνειν, οὐδὲ ἀπίστῳ ἀνδρὶ πιστὴν 
γυναῖκα κελεύει συνάπτεσθαι" πᾶν γὰρ τοὐναντίον διαγορεύε. Μετὰ 
βραχέα γὰρ ταῖς χήραις νομοθετῶν ἐπήγαγε, μόνον ἐν κυρίῳ, τουτέστι 
a 5 lal / "ἡ > ἴω Ἂν ~ “ X\ ἴων 
πιστῷ, ἐυσεβεῖ, σωφρόνως, κοσμίως. ᾿᾿ντᾶυθα δὲ περὶ τῶν πρὸ τοῦ 
΄, , μὲ ’ \ Ν \ x7 > ae 
κηρύγματος συναφθέντων ἔφη. Συνέβαινε yap Tov μὲν ἄνδρα πιστεῦσαι, 
τὴν δὲ γυναῖκα τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ προσμεῖναι, καὶ αὖ πάλιν, τὴν μὲν γυναῖκα 
XN / , Ν \. ΟΝ lal > 7 A Ἂς 6 
TO κήρυγμα δέξασθαι, τὸν δὲ ἄνδρα τῆς ἀπιστίας περικεῖσθαι τὴν λύμην. 
Καὶ παρεγγυᾷ τοῖς ὑγιαίνουσι φέρειν τὴν τῶν ὁμοζύγων ἀσθένειαν καὶ 
Ἣν ἡ / Sf ἴω Ν 7 « / 
τὴν τούτων πραγματεύεσθαι σωτηρίαν. Tovto yap λέγει" ᾿Ηγίασται 
γὰρ ὁ ἀνὴρ ὃ ἄπιστος ἐν τῇ γυναικὶ καὶ ἡγίασται ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄπιστος ἐν 

2) 2 ὃ \ Py / ” / > ANY 5 Ἂν Ν Seek A > x 
τῷ ἀνδρὶ" τουτεστίν ἔχει σωτηρίας ἐλπίδα. Hi δὲ Kat αὐτὸς ἢ ἀυτὴ 
Ψ / Si) ‘4 xX 5 Ἂ ᾿ς - la / « 
ἐπιμένοι τῇ νόσῳ, τὸ ἐκείνου σπέρμα μεθέξει τῆς σωτηριάςς. Ὕ περβο- 
λικώτερον δὲ ταῦτα τέθεικε, πείθων μὴ καταλιπέξιν τὴν συνάφειαν. 

Εἰ δὲ ὁ ἄπιστος χωρίζεται, χωριζσθω" dv δεδούλωται ὁ ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἡ 
ἀδελφὴ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις. Td πιστεῦον, φησὶ, μέρος μὴ διδότω πρόφασιν 
τῷ χωρισμῷ. Hi δὲ τὸ νοσοῦν ἀποστῆναι βούλεται, ἀθῶος εἶ σὺ, καὶ 
τῆς κατηγορίας ἐλεύθερος. “Hv δὲ εἰρήνῃ κέκληκεν ἡμᾶς ὃ Θεός. Kai 

Ν 5) 5 A 
μὴν ὁ Kupios ἔφη: Οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ἀλλὰ 

te a“ lal 
μάχαιραν, διχᾶσαι ἄνθρωπον ἀπὸ τοῦ πλησίον avtév. ᾿Αλλ’ οὐκ 
Ψ Ψ “Ὁ > / «ες / Ἂ ει 9 / Ν A 7 
ἐναντίον τοῦτο ἐκείνῳ: “Hppeveter δὲ ὁ ᾿Απόστολος τὴν τὄυ κυρίου 
διδασκαλίαν. Td σωτήριον yap, φησὶ, κήρυ ἡ σύ ἰς τὸ 

: ἥριον γὰρ, φησὶ, κήρυγμα οὐ σύγχυσιν εἰς τὸν 
βιόν εἰσάγει, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον πραγματεύεται τὴν ἀληθῆ καὶ θεοφιλῆ 
ἐιρήνην. 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom, iii. p. 277. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 493 


Into, 16,17. 
᾿Εδίδαξεν ἐνταῦθα σαφῶς, ὥς ὀυκ ἀπίστοις ἀνδράσιν ἢ γυναιξὶ συνάπ- 


τεσθαι παρηγγύησεν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ὅυτω κληθεῖσιν ἐκεῖνα νενομοθέτηκεν. 


In 5 39) 
Τυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ ἐφ᾽ ὅσον χρόνον ζῇ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς ἐὰν δὲ κοιμηθῇ 
c oe NX 3 le > \ Ὄ 7 lat / 3 ἐδ , 
ὁ ἀνὴρ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν ᾧ θέλει γαμηθῆναι, μόνον ev κυρίῳ. Τουτέστιν 
ὁμοπίστῳ, εὐσεβεῖ, σωφρόνως, ἐννόμως. 


CouNCcIL OF CHALCEDON (a.D. 451.)? 
Canon 14. 


᾿Επειδὴ ἔν τισιν ἐπαρχίαις συγκεχώρηται τοῖς ἀναγνώσταις Kat 
3 A a εξ ε ,’ὕ Sve XN 3 A / Sis Mee ¢ 14 
ψάλταις γαμεῖν, ὥρισεν 1) ayia Σύνοδος μὴ ἐξεῖναί τινα αὐτῶν ἑτερό- 
A ig a Ν ” 3 / 7 7 
Sofov γυναῖκα λαμβάνειν" τοὺς de ἤδη ἐκ τοιούτου γάμου παιδοποιή- 
> \ 4 / \ 5 > “ He Ἂν A 
σαντας, εἰ μὲν ἔφθασαν βαπτίσαι τὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν τεχθέντα παρὰ τοῖς 
e A iid > Ἂς hi a lay 3 / A \ 
αἱρετικοῖς προσάγειν αὐτὰ TH κοινωνίᾳ τῆς καθολικῆς EKKAnoias* μὴ 
id Ν Χ » μ / SN \ A «ε A 
βαπτισθέντα δὲ, μὴ δύνασθαι ἔτι βαπτίζειν αὐτὰ παρὰ τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς " 
7 x 7 Ν / € CONES. 7, Neh > \ 
μήτε μὴν συνάπτειν πρὸς γάμον αἱρετικῷ ἢ Ιουδαίῳ ἢ “HAAN, εἰ μὴ 
” 5 7 Zz 5 x 5 7 ς fis \ 
apa ἐπαγγέλλοιτο μετατίθεσθαι εἰς τὴν ὀρθόδοξον πίστιν τὸ συναπ- 
6 td Ἂ 5 θ δό Ki δέ la) O \ a β ᾽’, 
τόμενον πρόσωπον τῷ ὀρθοδόξῳ. € τις τοῦτον τὸν ὅρον TapaPain 


“A ε ἊΝ Sy iA A [2 ve θ 
τῆς ἁγίας Συνόδου, κανονικῶς ὑποκείσθω. 


In the period of Christian history which extends from the 
conversion of Constantine to the death of Justinian certain 
features which were present in the earlier period do not fail to 
become emphasized. Thus the practice of marriage between 
Christian women and heathen husbands, though it can never 
be said to be approved, becomes so common as to create a 
tradition which weighs to some. extent with S. Augustine. 
The numerical superiority of the women in the Christian com- 
munity does not appear to have ceased with the influx of the 
world into the Church, while the laxer spirit of the new con- 
verts would certainly not be prepared to admit any greater 
stringency of obligation than it had been found possible to 
maintain in the earlier period. 

In the matter of married converts, on the other hand, this 
second period shews a considerably more rigorous discipline 


ae 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 285. ? Mansi, tom. vii. p. 363. 


Intro- 
ductory 
Statement. 
Mixed 
Marriages. 


Re- 
marriage 
of 
Converts. 


Instances. 


Nonna. 


5 


Monnica. 


494 HOLY MATRIMONY 


than can be found in the earlier centuries. The explanation is 
almost certainly to be found chiefly in the existence of the 
careless unbaptized catechumens, who were too apt to claim 
the license of the heathen while professing the faith of the 
Christian. Such catechumens were made to accept the 
Christian law, which thus came to be extended indefinitely 
outside the ranks of the baptized. It is true that most 
Christian writers still seem to have admitted the rightfulness 
of the remarriage of converts under given conditions, but the 
opposite tendency asserted itself so powerfully that S. Augustine 
is found to disallow such remarriage. 

Actual instances of mixed marriages may first be noticed. 

Nonna (died A.D. 374), the mother of 8. Gregory Nazianzen, 
was the child of Christian parents in good position, Philtatius 
and Gorgonia. She was married to the elder Gregory of 
Nazianzum, who at the time of his marriage was an adherent 
of the Hypsistarian sect. This body professed a strange 
medley of Christianity, Judaism, and Paganism; and Professor 
Stokes describes it as “one of the precursors of Mahometanism 
which appeared from time to time in the East.”! It is not to 
be regarded as worthy of the name of a Christian sect, and 
Gregory, while a Hypsistarian, was, in the view of the Church, 
a non-Christian. By Nonna’s influence, according to the tes- 
timony of S. Gregory the younger, the elder Gregory was 
converted and baptized.? 

S. Monnica (A.D. 351-408), the mother of δ. Augustine, was 
married to Patricius, an wnbaptized man of passionate character 
and somewhat irregular life. §. Monnica was of Christian 
parentage. Her home was “domus fidelis, bonum membrum 
Keclesiae.”* Patricius was apparently a careless adherent of 
the Christian faith, content to rest, hke so many in his age, on 
the outside fringe of the Church. He was baptized a short 
time before his death in A.p. 371. For some twenty years, 
therefore, 8. Monnica’s marriage had been a marriage with one 
who was not a jidelis. 


1 Art. Hypsistarti, in Dictionary of Christian Biography. 
2S. Greg. Nazianzen, Oration 18, ὁ. 11 (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 997). 
3 §. Augustine, Confessions, ix. 8. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 499 


Laeta, who was daughter-in-law of Paula (died A.D. 404), the The 
friend of 8. Jerome, is described as the daughter of Albinus, a od 2: 
heathen priest, and of ἃ Christian mother. Whether the 
mother was a Christian before her marriage does not appear.’ 

Synesius, the neo-platonist philosopher, and afterwards Bishop Synesius. 
of Ptolemais in the Libyan Pentapolis, married a Christian 
lady at Alexandria in the year 403, at which time he was not 
himself baptized, though gradually becoming more and more 
Christian in thought and feeling. This marriage is very re- 
markable, since it was deliberately solemnized by Theophilus, 
the Christian patriarch of Alexandria. When, some time after 
his baptism, Synesius was elected, much against his will, to be 
Bishop of Ptolemais, he used, among other arguments against 
his acceptance of the office, the argument that he was not pre- 
pared to live a celibate life, as appears to have been generally 
expected of a bishop. “Gop and the law and the sacred hand 
of Theophilus gave me my wife. I therefore declare openly to 
all, and testify that I will not separate entirely from her, or 
visit her secretly like an adulterer. The one course would be 
contrary to piety, the other to law. I shall wish and pray to 
have a large number of virtuous children.’ It appears, there- 
fore, to be established that in the case of Synesius the marriage 
was actually solemnized, notwithstanding the fact that he was 
not a Christian, by the Christian patriarch of Alexandria 
himself. 

The attitude of the secular law on the subject of marriage Secular 
between Christians and non-Christians may be noticed. £°2°'* 
There is at no time during the period from Constantine to 
Justinian any secular prohibition of marriage between 
Christians and Pagans. As Roman citizens they were equally 
protected by the Roman law. Other feelings were, however, 
current with regard to (a) Jews and (Ὁ) barbarians. 

Jews were then, as so often in later times, regarded as Marriage 
generally noxious. Politically they had no loyalty, even when O\v<<" 
they were free from sedition; while from the religious point 854 Jews. 
of view they were offensive alike to gentiles and to Christians. 
Accordingly we find that Constantius IL, in Α.Ὁ. 359, forbade 





1S. Jerome, Lpistle 107. 2 Synesius, Ep. 105. 


And 
between 
Romans 
and 
barbarians. 


Christian 
authorities. 
Council of 
Arles. 


496 HOLY MATRIMONY 


all marriages between Christians and Jews under penalty of 
death.! About fifty years later, in the year 388, Emperors 
Valentinian II., Theodosius the Great, and Arcadius, pro- 
nounced that in cases of marriage between a Jew and a 
Christian, the parties to the marriage were to be accounted 
guilty as of the crime of adultery, and the right of accusa- 
tion was made public.2 This enactment passed into the Code 
of Justinian, thence into the Basilicas, and finally into the 
Nomocanones, where it formed part of the recognised law of 
the Church as well as of the State.? 

The laws affecting marriage with barbarians can hardly be 
said to have any religious significance. There was no secular 
bar to marriage between two persons who were Romans, 
even though one was a Christian and the other a Pagan; but 
a constitution of the Emperors Valentinian I. and Valens, 
issued in A.D. 365, made marriage between Romans and bar- 
barians a capital offence.* The ground was civil, not religious, 
incompatibility. 

Among distinctly Christian authorities for the period may 
first be mentioned the Council of Arles (A.D. 314), which has 
a significant canon on the subject of mixed marriages. “Con- 
cerning baptized (fidelibus) damsels who are united to gentiles, 
it was determined that for some time they should be excluded 
from communion.”® Evidently no iteration of the teaching 
that mixed unions were wrong had availed to prevent their 
occasional occurrence. The question accordingly arose, When 
such a marriage has taken place, what is the Church to do? 
Is the marriage to be considered as in all respects null, and the 
erring Christian woman to be treated as an alien till she re- 
nounces her marriage, or is she to be simply punished for dis- 
obedience, and then allowed to continue the relation? This 
question is still beyond all doubt one of the most difficult 
questions on the subject of marriage with which the Church 
is confronted. The Council of Arles took the more indulgent 
view. The continuance of the marriage relation does not 





1 Codex Theodosianus, xvi. 8. 6. rT Glee τπη. (oe 
3 Zhishman, Das Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 510. 
4 Codex Theodosianus, iii. 14, 1. 5 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 472. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 407 


appear to have been forbidden; but the Christian woman 
was excluded from communion for a time. 

The Council of Laodicea may next be noticed.! This Council of 

Council must be placed after the Council of Antioch in *#°“°e* 
A.D. 341, but before the second General Council in Aap. 381. 
It has been suggested that the Council of Laodicea may have 
been “a semi-Arian council, like that of Antioch, whose canons 
were received ultimately by the Church for their intrinsic 
worth.”’? Dionysius Exiguus, through whom our knowledge 
of the canons of this Council comes, appears only to have 
preserved an abstract of the contents of each canon, and not 
the actual canons themselves. The 10th and 31st canons both 
forbid the marriage of Catholic Christians with heretics, except 
in the case of the heretic promising to become a “ Christian.” 
It is not said whether the conversion and baptism would in 
this case be required to antedate the marriage or not. 

The African Code? forbids the sons of clergy to marry The 
gentiles or heretics, a prohibition which suggests the in- Ren 
ference that it was not practicable to restrain such unions 
among the laity. 
᾿ς The 9th Canon of 8. Basil‘ thus adduces the instructions of 5. Basil 
S. Paul as regards female converts: “Even from an unbelieving 
husband the woman was not commanded to depart, but to 
remain by reason of the uncertainty of the issue. ‘For what 
knowest thou, O wife, if thou shalt save thy husband’” To 
S. Basil, therefore, the possibility of the conversion of the 
husband supplied the ground for the continuance of an union 
which was under unequal conditions, and required explanation. 

S. Chrysostom has much to say upon the subject. In the 5. chry- 
Homily Against those who fast with the Jews® he compares the °°*°™ 
permission to retain a non-Christian wife with the permission The con- 


; : : 5 : tinuance of 
to cast out a wife guilty of unchastity, drawing the inference marriage 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 564. 

2 Ffoulkes, in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities; art. Laodicea, 
Councils of. 

3 Mansi, tom. iii. p. 722. 

4S. Basil, Hpistle 188 (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 677). 

5 §. Chrysostom, Against those who fast with the Jews. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 1. 
p. 860.) 

2K 


with an 
unbeliever 


is the great 


concession. 


Separation 
permissible 
if the 
unbeliever 
be the 
cause of it. 


Re- 

marriage 
also per- 
missible. 


498 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that Gop is loving and careful of His people, who thus suffers 
unfaithfulness to Himself but permits man to punish unfaith- 
fulness which regards man. 

The same thought is prominent in his mind in his remarks 
on the passage 1 Cor. vu. 12, 15 in the 19th Homily on that 
Epistle.t The permission to retain the wife is, in 8. Chrysostom’s 
mind, the overwhelming concession. He adduces the parable 
of the unmerciful servant, to whom the lord was willing to 
forgive ten thousand talents owing to himself. The difficulty 
to S. Chrysostom thus lay not at all in the putting away of the 
unbelieving partner who was averse to the marriage, but in the 
retaining of the unbelieving partner who was willing to be 
retained. He goes on to notice ὃ. Paul’s statement that the 
unbelieving partner is sanctified by the believer, which is made, 
he says, lest the woman should fear that she would be defiled 
by the connexion. Stress is laid upon the possibility of the 
conversion of the unbelieving partner. “For how will a wife 
who has held in dishonour the time gone by, and is become the 
wife of another, and has blotted out the equities of marriage, 
be able to recall her injured spouse ?” 

Yet “she does not abide with the unbeliever in any case, but 
only if he be willing.” “‘If the unbeliever be the cause of 
separation, let him be the cause of separation.’ For in that 
case the deed (πράγμα) is no longer fornication (πορνεία). 
This sentence can hardly mean anything except that the 
Christian partner may remarry. There could be no πορνεία in 
any case without a fresh connexion. “ But what does that 
mean, ‘If the unbelever be the cause of separation (εἰ δὲ ὁ 
ἄπιστος χωρίζεται) ? For instance, if he command thee to 
sacrifice, and to communicate with him in impiety by reason of 
the marriage, or (if he command thee) to retire, it is better 
that the marriage, rather than that piety, should be torn 
asunder. Wherefore he added, ‘A brother or a sister is not 
bound in such a case.’ If every day he spars and contends on 
this account, (the Apostle) says it is better to be set free 
(ava\Aaynvar=to be divorced). For this it is which he 





1S. Chrysostom, Homily xix. on 1 Corinthians, in loco. (Migne’s Ed. tom. x. 
p. 154.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 499 


indicates when he says, ‘But Gop has called us in peace.’ For 
the husband has now provided a ground, just as he who has 
committed fornication.” 

Attention has already been called to the meaning which such 
a master of Greek as ὃ. Chrysostom attaches to the verb 
XwpiCoua. It is not merely, “If he depart, let him depart,” χωρίζομαι. 
as in the English and Latin versions, but, “If he be the cause 
of separation, let him be the cause of separation.” 

Ὁ. Chrysostom thus holds that if the unbeliever be the cause 
of separation (not necessarily himself being the deserting party), 
the separation is justified so far as concerns the Christian 
partner, and he uses language which implies that the Christian 
partner may remarry. On the other hand, he is of opinion that 
when the Christian partner of his own motion repudiater a 
marriage which the unbelieving partner is willing to continue, 
he is guilty of “blotting out the equities of marriage.” 

Ὁ. Ambrose (bp. A.D. 374-397) has some very distinct 5. 
utterances on the questions before us. Commenting on ead 
Ὁ. Luke xvi. 18, he says, “And how said the Apostle, ‘But if 
the unbeliever depart, let him depart’? In which (saying) 
he in wondrous wise both expressed his will that among 
Christians there should abide no cause of divorce, and showed 
that not every marriage is from Gop, for Christian women are 
not united to gentiles with the approval of Gop, since the law 
prohibits it.”? 

Farther on in the same commentary he again contrasts the 
prohibition of divorce to Christians with the permission 
granted by 8. Paul where one of the partners is an unbeliever.? 
He quotes loosely, as if from memory, reading in the 12th 
verse et relinquit eam for non dimittat eam. But the inference 
he proceeds to draw is equally warranted by the permission to 
separate which is given in the 15th verse. “ Wherefore,’ says 
S. Ambrose, “ where marriage is unequal, there the law of Gop 
is not. And he added, ‘ But if the unbeliever depart, let him 
depart.’ At the same time the same Apostle denied that it was 





1 §. Ambrose, Expositio Hvangelit secundum Lucam, lib. viii. sec. 2 (in 
xvi. 18). (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1765.) 
2 Ibid. lib. viii. § 8. 
2K 2 


S. Jerome. 


Letter to 
Ageruchia. 


Letter to 
Eusto- 
chium. 


500 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of the law Divine that any marriage whatsoever should be 
dissolved ; neither did he himself enjoin it, nor give authority 
to the deserting partner, but he took away all blame from the 
partner deserted.” 

S. Ambrose thus grasps with all clearness the distinction 
between Christian marriage and marriage which 15 not Christian. 
The latter is not, strictly speaking, a marriage according to the 
law of Gop, and therefore does not properly come under the 
Divine prohibition of divorce. Yet 8. Paul had abstained from 
severing the tie. 

Though 8. Ambrose evidently follows S. Paul in the per- 
mission to continue such marriages, he is notwithstanding 
very clear as to the wrongfulness of any attempt by one 
already a Christian to contract a marriage with one outside 
Christianity. Thus in the treatise De Abraham’ he solemnly 
warns Christians against such marriages, and expressly states 
that the fact that the person sought is a catechumen does not 
justify union with the unbaptized. “If she be a Christian, 
it 1s not enough unless ye both have been initiated by the 
sacrament of baptism.” In the epistle to Vigilius? 8. Ambrose 
is also very decided in his opposition to mixed marriages, 
taking the ground that all such marriages are dangerous to the 
faith of the believing partner. 

S. Jerome is no less clear as to the wrongfulness of mixed 
marriages. In his letter to Ageruchia, a young widow lady, 
he dissuades her move swo from marriage a second time. In 
the course of his argument he remarks: “ And that which he 
added, ‘only in the Lord, takes away marriages with the 
ethnics, of which he had said in another place, ‘Be not yoked 
with unbelievers,’ lest, in truth, we plough with an ox and 
an ass; lest the nuptial tunic be woven with a mottled 
woof.’’ 

Writing to Eustochium, a young unmarried lady, and the 
daughter of Paula, another of those epistles which, as 





1 §. Ambrose, De Abraham, lib. i. 6. 9. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 450.) 

* S. Ambrose, Hpistle xix. to Vigilius. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 983.) 

3S. Jerome, Epistola ad Ageruchiam de Monogamia. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. 
p. 1046.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES DOL 


addressed to ladies, readers of the present day find it so 
difficult to appreciate, he is equally clear on the influence of 
mixed marriages. “ But if they also who are virgins by reason 
of other faults may not be saved by reason of the virginity 
of their bodies; what shall be done to those who have prosti- 
tuted the members of Christ, and have changed the temples of 
the Holy Ghost into a brothel ?”! 

In his first book against Jovinian S. Jerome treats of the Against 
case of the married convert. Referring to 5. Paul’s teaching 7°""*™ 
in 1 Cor. vii. he states that the occasion of it was that “among 
other things the Corinthians had enquired by a letter whether, 
when of two (married) ethnics one had believed in Christ, the 
believing partner ought to leave the unbeliever. And, if wives 
were to be taken in marriage, whether he commanded that 
only Christian women should be received, or ethnics also.”? 
S. Jerome’s comment on 8. Paul’s answer at once gives a very 
clear statement of his own views, and affords considerable 
insight into the actual laxity of practice in his day in the 
matters of mixed marriages. “But to those whom the faith 
had overtaken in the married state, that is, if one of two had 
believed, he enjoined that the believer should not repudiate the 
unbeliever. He declares as the reasons (for this advice) that 
the unbeliever, if he be unwilling to depart from the believer, 
is a candidate for the faith: on the other hand he commands 
that if the unbeliever repudiate the believer on account of the 
faith of Christ, the believer ought to depart, lest he should 
prefer his partner to Christ, who ought to be preferred even to 
his own life. But now very many women, despising the com- 
mandment of the Apostle, are united to gentiles, and prostitute 
the temples of Christ to idols, nor do they understand that 
they are a part of his body, whose ribs indeed they are. The 
Apostle pardons union with unbelievers to those wives who, 
having husbands, believed in Christ at a date subsequent to 
their marriage: but he does not pardon those who, when they 


1S. Jerome, Epistola ad Eustochium, De custodia virginitatis. (Migne’s Ed, 
TONAL aD 907) 

2 8. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, lib. i. ὁ. 7. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. pp. 
218, 223.) 


Prevalence 
of mixed 
marriages, 


which S. 
Jerome 
denounces 
as 
altogether 
unlawful. 


Case of the 
married 
convert. 
Divorce 
open, 


and 
probably 
also re- 
marriage. 


Marriage 
before 
baptism no 
bar to the 
priesthood. 


502 HOLY MATRIMONY 


were Christians, married gentiles, to whom he says elsewhere, 
‘Be not yoked with unbelievers, &c. ... For although I 
know that very many of the matrons will be furious against 
me; although with the same immodesty with which they have 
despised the Lord they will riot against me, who am but a flea 
and the least of Christians; yet I will say what I feel.” 

The statement as to the prevalence of mixed marriages in 
the Roman Church in S$. Jerome’s time, or about the end of the 
fourth century, is remarkable. “Very many matrons” would 
be affected by his statement. There is still no indication of 
any mixed marriages in which the husband was a Christian 
and the wife a non-Christian. Evidently the women were still 
in the majority among the Christians, and the old difficulty 
with which Callistus had to deal more than two hundred years 
before was still as real a difficulty as ever. But practice had 
thrown over the old restrictions. Ladies of position would no 
longer think of confining their choice to the two alternatives 
of remaining unmarried or marrying beneath them; they 
married non-Christian husbands of their own rank. 

S. Jerome declines to be led away by the depraved practice 
around him. He returns to the strict teaching of 8. Cyprian. 
Women who thus unite themselves with gentzles, “despise the 
commandment of the Apostle,’ and “prostitute the temple of 
Christ to idols.” The case of the married convert is, however, 
different. If the unbeliever will abide, the existing union is 
permitted and preferred ; otherwise divorce is open. S. Jerome 
appears to understand that such divorce carries with it the 
right of remarriage, as he sharply contrasts it with the ordinary 
indissolubility of Christian marriage. After stating that in 
Christian marriage the wife is not to be put away except for 
fornication, and, if put away, is not to marry again while her 
husband lives, he proceeds at once to state the case of the 
unbelieving partner, introducing his statement with autem 
(notwithstanding, however). 

A passage in the Commentary on the Epistle to Titus ex- 
presses 8. Jerome’s sense of the wrongfulness of the view that 
a marriage before baptism should be counted as one of the two 
successive marriages which would disqualify a man for the 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 503 


priesthood. Unions before baptism 8S. Jerome would regard as 
in an altogether different plane from unions after baptism.! 
This subject will be reverted to in connexion with S. Innocent’s 
letters.” 

The writer known as Ambrosiaster has a passage on the Ambrosi- 
subject. It is remarkable for its very strong statement as to oes 
the freedom of the believer to marry again in the case where 
the unbeliever has effected a separation. “For if Esdras caused 
to be put away unbelieving wives or husbands in order that 
Gop might be propitiated and not angered through their taking 
others of their own race; for it was not commanded to them 
that when the former were put away they were not to marry 
others; how much more, if the unbeliever have departed, shall 
the other partner have free choice if she desire to marry a 
husband of her own law? For that ought not to be called 
matrimony which is effected outside the decree of Gop; but 
when afterwards a person recognises this, and is grieved to 
have been in default, (the marriage) amends its character, so 
that he may be deserving of pardon. But if both believed 
they confirm their marriage by the approbation of Gop.’ 

The testimony of Ambrosiaster will be received with some 
measure of suspicion on account of the very lax character of 
his other teaching on the subject of divorce among Christians ; 
but it should be remembered that here he is not only entirely 
in accord with the most approved practice of the later Church, 
but the ground) he gives for his conclusions are exactly the 
grounds which have commended themselves to many high 
authorities of later times. 

The Council of Hippo, in A.D. 393, following the precedent Council of 
of the Canon of Carthage, which has been already cited from ™??™ 
the African code, ruled “that the sons of bishops, or of what- 
soever clergy, are not to be united in marriage to gentiles, or 
even to heretics and schismatics.”* From this may be gathered, 
what indeed S. Augustine explicitly states, that there was no 





1 §. Jerome, Commentary on the Epistle to Titus, c. 1. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. 
p. 564.) ga pablo. 

3 Ambrosiaster, in Hpist. 1 Cor. vii. 138. (Migne’s Ed. of 8, Ambrose, tom, ii. 
2. p. 218.) 4 Mansi, tom. iii. p. 921. 


Ss. 
Augustine. 


De 
Sermone 
Domini in 
Monte. 


Dismissal 
of 
unbeliever 
per- 
missible. 


504 HOLY MATRIMONY 


very strong feeling at this time in Africa against such marriages 
in the cases of ordinary lay Christians. 

We next come to S. Augustine. In the Hxposition of the 
Sermon on the Mount, written about A.D. 394, and while there- 
fore he was a priest at Hippo, he passes from our Lord’s 
teaching on marriage and divorce to the teaching of 8. Paul on 
these subjects in 1 Cor. vii. After considering §. Paul’s in- 
junctions in restraint of divorce in the case of ordinary 
Christian marriage, he proceeds to consider the Apostle’s 
teaching as regards the case of the married convert. In so 
doing he lays considerable stress on the tone in which 5. Paul 
says, “To the rest say I, not the Lord.” “If therefore he does 
not command ‘in the person of the Lord, but counsels in his 
own person, there is this advantage that if any should do other- 
wise he is not the transeressor of a command.’! Keble 
remarks that S. Augustine here overlooks “the positive de- 
claration of the Apostle that in his own counsels, as well as in 
what he quoted from the Lord, he ‘had the Spirit of Gop.’ 
That this criticism is uncalled for may be seen from the fact 
that in the De Conjugus Adulterinis, where the same arguments 
are retraced with more insistance and at greater length, 
S. Augustine expresses himself thus: “Since therefore the 
Lord neither prohibits nor commands the believer to depart 
from the unbeliever, so it is the Apostle, not the Lord, who 
says that he should not depart; having undoubtedly the Holy 
Spirit, in which he was able to give useful and faithful counsel.” 
S. Augustine then does certainly not lose sight of the fact that 
S. Paul had the Spirit of Gop. And it may surely be asserted, 
without leaving much scope for argument, that while it would 
contradict Holy Scripture to say that 8. Paul, in the passage 
under notice, was teaching without the Spirit of God, the 
Apostle himself does distinctly indicate an essential difference 
of character in the heads of his teaching. That difference, 


1S. Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. 1. § 44. (Migne’s Ed. 
tom. ili. p. 1251.) 

2 Keble, Sequel of the Argument against immediately repealing the Laws which 
treat the Nuptial Bond as indissoluble, p. 97. 

3 8. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adulterinis, lib. i. c. 18. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 
vi. p. 463.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 505 


according to 8. Augustine, is the difference between command Heo 
6 con- 
and counsel. In Christian marriage “the woman is commanded tinuance 
of the 
not to depart from her husband, but if she depart to remain 2 vince is 


unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband: it is not there- counselled 
fore lawful to do otherwise. But the believing husband is aa 
counselled, if he have an unbelieving wife who consents to ™27de¢ 
dwell with him, not to put her away: therefore it is lawful to 

put her away.”! The antithesis here would seem to demand 

that the putting away an unbelieving partner would carry with 

it the power to marry again; but elsewhere 8. Augustine ex- 
presses himself in a different sense. Apart from the right of 
remarriage S. Augustine is clear that the Christian partner has 

a right of separation even in the case where the unbeliever is 
willing to abide. Opinions may differ as to the value of this 
conclusion, and of the argument upon which it is based. There 

can, however, be no uncertainty as to 8. Augustine’s view. 

“The believing man, if he have an unbelieving wife who agrees 

to live with him, is counselled not to dismiss her: 7 is therefore 
permissible to dismiss her: because it is not a precept of the 

Lord that he do not dismiss her, but a counsel of the Apostle ; 

just as a virgin is advised not to marry; yet if she marry she 

will not indeed observe the counsel, but she will also not be 
acting in violation of a precept.” 

The distinction between the sacramental character of 
Christian marriage and the non-sacramental character of 
marriage outside Christianity, which S. Augustine afterwards 
taught in the De Bono Conjugali, does not appear to have been 
present to his mind when writing the commentary on the 
Sermon on the Mount. At least he nowhere bases upon it. 

On the contrary, he goes on to use an argument which Unbelief a 
altogether ignores this difference of character. “If it be Pw ΠΟ, 
permissible that an unbelieving wife be dismissed, although 

it is better not to dismiss her, and yet it is not permitted 
according to the precept of the Lord that a wife should be 
dismissed except for the cause of fornication, then this very 
unbelief is also fornication.” 


1 §, Augustine, De Sermone Domini in Monte, lib. 1. ὃ 44, 


De Diversis 


Quaestioni- 
bus, Ixxxilii. 


Letter to 
Hilarius. 


The De 
Conjugiis 


Adulterinis. 


506 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Alike in the early and in the later years of S. Augustine's 
teaching this argument, that an unbelieving wife might be 
dismissed because unbelief was a spiritual fornication, appears 
to have been a very favourite one with him. In the book De 
Diversis Quaestiontbus laxaxiit., which were answers written in 
the early years, though repeated at a later date, he repeats the 
arcument. “If the Lord admits no other ground but fornica- 
tion for the dismissal (dimittendae) of a wife, and yet does not 
forbid a pagan marriage to be set aside (dimztiz), 10 follows that 
paganism may be accounted fornication.”+ 8. Augustine here 
also repeats the argument which distinguishes between precept 
and counsel. “The Apostle says, ‘I speak, not the Lord,’ 
that the Lord may be understood, not indeed to command 
dismissal, lest the Apostle should seem to give counsel contrary 
to His command, but notwithstanding to permit (such dismissal), 
so that no one shall in that matter be bound by the necessity 
of command, but shall act freely on his own will in accordance 
with counsel.” 

The rationale of the permission to put away is stated by 
S. Augustine in a letter to Hilarius in the following terms: 
“Tf the unbeliever is unwilling to abide with the believing 
partner, let the latter recognise his freedom, and not deem 
himself so subjected to bondage that he should part with the 
faith itself in order not to part with an unbelieving consort.” 

It may be well to notice next a long and instructive series of 
passages which is found in the De Conjugus Adulterinis (care. 
A.D. 419). That book represents the mature views of the great 
doctor, as it is separated from the earlier works which have 
just been noticed by a quarter of a century. Yet time has 
only confirmed the conclusions of the earlier writings, if it has 
introduced some difference of treatment in the argument on 
which those conclusions are based. He still insists that 
S. Paul’s words, in dissuasion of putting away the unbelieving 
wife or husband, are words of counsel, and not words of 
command. To put away is lawful but not expedient. The 





1 §. Augustine, De Diversis Quaestionibus lxxxtii. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. 


p. 100.) 
2 S. Augustine, Hpist, 157; ad Hilariwm, c. 31. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 11, p. 689.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 507 


reason why it is not expedient “is clearly expressed. For the ΗΕ 
Apostle decides against deserting unbelieving partners, not on not 885 in 
account of a marriage vinculum which has to be maintained blip 
with such persons, but in order that they may be won to 
Christ.”! Here we see something of clearer theology. The 
vinculum, which, as he had been teaching elsewhere, subsisted 
as a sacramental and indissoluble bond in the marriages of the 
members of the body of Christ, was not here in question. In 
other words, the non-Christian marriage was different in kind 
from the Christian marriage, and unable, by its own proper 
force, to bind as Christian marriage bound. But the con- 
tinuance of the union under changed conditions was permitted 
and counselled in order to attain a specific end; viz., the 
winning of unbelievers to Christ. 

Although, however, S. Augustine thus expresses the view 
that the duty to continue the marriage is not to be derived Unbelief 
from the existence of an indissoluble vinculum, he is still 2,0" 
found using the argument that infidelity is fornication. 
“Wherefore if it were not lawful to put away an unbelieving 
wife, the Lord would forbid this to be done, and the Apostle, in 
deciding against it, would not say, ‘I speak, not the Lord 
For if on account of the fornication of the flesh a man is 
permitted to separate from his wife, how much more to be 
detested in a wife is the fornication of the spirit, that is, 
infidelity?” He repeats the same argument further on, 
insisting on the consequent lawfulness of putting away an 
unbelieving partner simply because of the unbelief, and then 
adds, “ Although the belever preserves true chastity (veram 
pudicitiam) even with an unbelieving partner, who does not 
preserve true chastity.”? That is to say, in such a sanctioned 
union the Christian finds Christian marriage, holy, and rescued 
from the pollution of the Fall; while to the unbeliever the 
union continues wanting in the holiness of Christian marriage, 
and therefore he does not preserve veram pudicitiam. Because, 
however, there is no Divine prohibition to put away, but only 
an Apostolical counsel in restraint of such putting away, it is 


1S. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adulterinis, lib. i. c. 18. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi, 
p- 459.) BCT DU ACi AL Le Sr Todds. 18: 


Lawful to 
put away, 
but 
unlawful 
to marry 
again. 


Argument 
from 
analogy 
of fornica- 
tion. 


508 HOLY MATRIMONY 


not to be concluded, after the analogy of the marriage of a 
virgin, that he who putteth away doeth well, and only that he 
who putteth not away doeth better. Such putting away, how- 
ever lawful, is not, in the case noticed by the Apostle, expedient, 
and it is not therefore doing well. 

There is thus no question as to what were S. Augustine’s 
views on the point of the lawfulness of putting away in the 
case of a married convert. It appears, however, that subject 
to certain reservations ὃ. Augustine did not hold that a 
Christian convert who thus put away the unbelieving partner 
was at liberty to marry again. It has been noticed that he 
continually insists upon the argument that since a wife or a 
husband may be put away for unbelief, and since also fornica- 
tion is the only Divinely-sanctioned ground for putting away, 
therefore unbelief is a species of fornication. Doubtless one 
ereat reason for S. Augustine’s insistence is his strong feeling 
that spiritual fornication should be held sufficient ground for 
putting away, even among Christians, a feeling to which 
reference has been made elsewhere, and which was shared with 
S. Augustine and by other Christian writers. But if the 
character of fornication thus ascribed to unbelief is the sole 
ground of the permission to put away; and if it be held, as 
was held by S. Augustine, that separation of life in con- 
sequence of fornication does not carry with it the lberty of 
remarriage, then neither is remarriage authorized when the 
separation of life is a consequence of the unbelief of the 
partner. Accordingly we find 8. Augustine following his 
areuments to their very conclusion, notwithstanding expressions 
made at other times to the effect that the indissolubility of the 
vinculum is proper to Christian marriage. 

Thus at the end of ο. 18 he says that if the unbelieving partner 
who is put away should remarry, his union is adulterous. Such 
persons are “bound by adulterous ties.” There is, however, an 
alternative reading which rejects these words. 

Again in c. 25, commenting still on the words of 8. Paul, he 
says: 

“And so let him be heard as teaching that, although this is 
lawful to be done, because the Lord does not utter this 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 509 


(counsel), yet it should not be done, because it is not expedient. 
For the Apostle teaches very plainly that not all things which 
are lawful are expedient, as we have just shown above. Yet 
by reason of no sort of fornication whatsoever, whether of the 
flesh or of the spirit (where unbelief also is understood) is it 
permitted, when the husband has been dismissed, to marry 
another wife, since our Lord makes no exception when He says, 
‘If a wife put away her husband, and be married to another, 
she committeth adultery, and whosoever putteth away his wife 
and marrieth another committeth adultery.’ ” 
_ Here then 8. Augustine’s argument has led him to a distinct 
pronouncement, that it is not lawful for one who has dismissed 
wife or husband for unbelief to marry again. It should be 
noted indeed that the case here determined does not expressly 
include the case of those Christians whose unbelieving hus- 
bands or wives have not been willing to remain: however, the 
argument employed may be held to embrace these by necessary 
inference. 

S. Augustine’s conclusion in this matter was, however, far s. Augus- 
from satisfying himself. It is at this point that he expresses mes Sense 


himself as to the grave difficulty of these questions in words dificulty 
which have become almost proverbial: “While I have thus ahi 
treated and discussed those points as far as my capacity 
admits, I am nevertheless not ignorant that this question of 
marriage is obscure and involved in the highest degree. Nor 

do I dare to affirm that either in this work, or in any other, 

I have as yet unfolded all its windings, or that, if called upon, 

I should be able to do 80 even now.”? 

It is never fair to dwell too much upon a conclusion arrived Not fair 
at by the way as a corollary to an argument used for some aoe eae 
other end. S. Augustine's argument in the De Conjugirs conclusion 
Adulterinis is directed to the disproof of the contention of by the 
Pollentius that, since ὃ. Paul gave an instruction that the “*” 
believer should abide with the unbeliever if the latter for 
his part was willing to abide, therefore the believer was 


bound so to abide. Not necessarily, argues 8. Augustine, for 


1S. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adulterinis, lib. i. ο. 25, 


Prohibition 
of re- 
marriage, 
The con- 
temporary 
practice. 


510 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(1) 5. Paul’s words are words of counsel, not of precept, and 
(2) infidelity is a form of fornication, and fornication adinits 
of separation of life. §. Augustine is therefore arguing on the 
side of indulgence, and without controversy he expresses his 
agreement with the strict view as to remarriage, so strengthen- 
ing his position in favour of the lesser indulgence. 

It seems also to be indisputable that in this expression of 
opinion §. Augustine was only asserting as a principle what 
was the actual practice of the Western Church in his day—at 
least in the case of catechumens of long standing. In the 
De Fide et Operibus he is opposing certain persons, of whom 
he says that, among other things, “it moved them that baptism 
is refused to men who had put away their wives and married 
others, or to women who had put away their husbands and 
been married to others; because our Lord Jesus Christ, without 
any manner of doubt, testifies such to be not marriages, but 
adulteries. For they were not able to deny that to be adultery 
which the Truth affirms without reserve to be so.”! The 
Church thus did in 8. Augustine’s time refuse baptism, though 
not without provoking a murmur, to catechumens who had 
divorced their wives and married others. It is clear, there- 
fore, that in the hundred years which had elapsed since the 
holding of the Council of Eliberis there had been in this 
matter an entire change of front, if indeed the canons of 
Eliberis may be taken as representing the general practice of 
the Western Church. As has been seen, in the view of those 
canons marriages contracted before baptism did not neces- 
sarily possess the indissoluble character. In their view the 
catechumen had been still the non-Christian, the Pagan, or 
the Jew, as the case might be. He was, to use a modern 
missionary phrase, “under instruction,” and that was all. He 
might be a professor of the faith, but so long as he delayed 
his baptism he was no member of the body of Christ, and 
was to be treated accordingly. On the other hand, the Church 
of S. Augustine’s day practically treats the catechumen as 
bound by the Christian law. As we have already indicated, 
history supplies an excellent practical reason. When the 


1S. Augustine, De Fide et Opertbus. (Migne’s Ed. tom, vi. p. 198.) 


ae ili ΣΧ ee i ἀμ . ὦ ΟΝ 


Ppa YS ee τ 
Ψ . 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 011 


eatechumen was a person who had grown up, as it were, 
within the precincts of the Christian Church, externally a 
Christian, not yet, by baptism, of the body of the faithful, 
it would become a crying scandal that he should permit 
himself the license of the heathen, and it would become a 
necessity of discipline that the Church should not permit 
him such unchristian license. In the interest alike of the 
Church and of himself the catechumen would have to be 
restrained. If he contracted marriage he would have to 
understand that when the day came in which he should seek 
the laver of regeneration he would not be permitted to throw 
aside his marriage with the easy license admitted by the 
Roman law. The Church had her conditions to make with 
him. 

The practical difficulty is thus clear enough. The necessity 
of some such solution of the difficulty as is supplied by the 
regulations which actually found place is also obvious. It is 
further probable that there would be confused arguments to 
explain the ecclesiastical regulations in use as being of Divine 
authority. The facts of the existing practice were (1) that 
a catechumen was an unbaptized person, and therefore no 
member of Christ, and (2) that the Church held him to be 
bound as the baptized members of Christ were bound. The 
prima facie reason would seem to the enquirer to be that the 
Divine law of the indissolubility of marriage held Christians 
and non-Christians with the same binding force. And it 
cannot therefore be great matter of surprise that 8. Augustine 
should have held that remarriage was Divinely prohibited, at 
any rate to the believer whose unbelieving partner was willing 
to abide, and presumably in every case of a married convert. 

Yet his deep sense of the difficulties which surrounded his 
conclusions found, as we have seen, most touching expression ; 
and he is of opinion that, at any rate in two specific cases, a 
concession might be made to the catechumen, which would not 
be made to the Fidelis. 

(1) The Fidelis who should die and make no sign after years 
passed in an unsanctioned union would be allowed to pass away 
without the viaticum of the faithful; but in the case of a 


Con- 
cessions. 


512 HOLY MATRIMONY 


catechumen S. Augustine was for more lenient usage: “ Those 
catechumens, who being bound in marriage to living persons 
persist in adulterous connexions, as long as they are in health, 
we may not admit to baptism. Nevertheless, if they lie in 
hopeless sickness, and cannot answer for themselves, I think 
that they ought to be baptized, that this sin also, among the 
rest, may be washed away in the laver of regeneration. For who 
knows whether they might not have made up their minds to be 
holden in that snare only unto the time of their baptism 71 

(2) So again the Mdelis whose wife was guilty of adultery 
might put her away, but, as has been seen elsewhere, might not 
on that account contract marriage with another woman. Speak- 
ing, however, of candidates for baptism, ὃ. Augustine says: 
“ Again, whosoever hath put away a wife taken in adultery, and 
married another, does not seem as if he ought to be on the 
same footing with those who divorce and remarry for some 
other cause than adultery. And in the dictates of Gop Himself 
it is so obscure whether he who unquestionably may dismiss an 
adulteress is yet to be judged an adulterer if he marry another 
that, as far as I can judge, one may pardonably err on that 
point.” 3 

It may be said that the first of these concessions is of no 
theological moment, since baptism is only accorded on the 
assumption that the existing union would be surrendered if the 
sick man could express himself. This is true; and perhaps the 
concession should not be regarded so much as indicating that 
the offence itself was any less adultery in 8. Augustine’s view, 
as that the sinfulness of the same offence is widely different in 
a baptized Christian and in a person unbaptized, and that 
penance should be tempered accordingly. 

The concession of remarriage to the catechumen who has 
divorced an adulterous wife is, however, of great theological 
moment. It means that the usage of the Church, or his own 
sense of right, or both, would not permit δ. Augustine to follow 
his argument to its legitimate conclusion at all hazards, He 


1S. Augustine, De Conjugits Adulterinis, lib. i. ὁ. 28. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 
vi. p. 470.) 
2 §. Augustine, De Fide et Operibus, c. 19. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 221.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 513 


was not prepared to say that the marriage bond was indissoluble 
in such a case, 

Subject to this exception we find that 8. Augustine concludes, 
although with hesitation, that remarriage is not open to the 
believer who puts away an unbelieving partner. Whether the 
ease of the believer who is put away by the unbeliever is 
exactly on the same footing does not appear. 

When, however, we come to question S. Augustine on the Is non- 
great principle which must ultimately determine the conclusion meee 
in this matter, the principle of the dissolubility or indissolubility dssoluble? 
of non-Christian marriage, we find him teaching in a different 
strain. In the De Bono Conjugali, after dwelling upon the in- 
dissoluble character of Christian marriage, he goes on to say: 
“ Nevertheless the case is not so with a wife except in the city 
of our Gop, in his holy mountain. For as to the laws of the 
gentiles, that their tenor is different, who knoweth not ? 
Among whom divorce taking place without any such guiltiness 
as may incur a penalty from man, she is married to whom she 
will, and he marrieth whom he will. Something like this cus- 
tom, because of the hardness of the Israelites, Muses seems to 
have permitted in the matter of the bill of divorce, which looks 
more like a stigma cast upon divorce than a sign of approval of 
it.” Again: “A marriage once contracted in the city of our 
Gop, wherein even from the first connexion of two human 
beings marriage brings with it a kind of sacrament, can no way 
be dissolved but by the death of one of the parties.”? And 
again: “The advantage of marriage therefore for all nations 
and all men is found in its being the cause of the begetting of 
children, and in the fidelity of chastity; but as regards the 
people of Gop it is found also in the sanctity of the sacrament, 
by which it is wicked for a woman, withdrawing even by 
divorce, to be married to another while her husband is living, 
not even for very offspring’s sake—which being the sole cause 
why marriages take place, nevertheless the nuptial bond is not 
dissolved but by the death of one of the parties, even though 
the result follow not, for the sake of which they are married.”? 

18. Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, lib. i. c. 7, 8. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi, 
p: 3/9.) 261010, 0.15: 8 Ibid. c. 24. 

2 1 


S. Augus- 
tine’s 
arguments 
mutually 
destruc- 
tive. 


Mixed 
marriages 
contracted 
as such. 


S. Augus: 
tine 
undecided 
on the 
general 
question, 


514 HOLY MATRIMONY 


It would appear therefore that S. Augustine was prepared to 
draw a very real distinction on the point of indissolubility 
between Christian marriages and the marriages of persons in 
the fallen state outside Christianity. Keble says of the treatise 
De Bono Conjugal: “It is very valuable, too, as a distinct 
acknowledgment that heathen marriage is not, and ought not 
to be treated as, indissoluble.”! The same distinction is drawn 
in the De Nuptis et Concupiscentia.” 

It is necessary to weigh 8. Augustine’s arguments as well as 
his conclusions. In truth, the two arguments we have referred 
to are mutually destructive. If the indissolubility of Christian 
marriage is dependent on its Christian or sacramental character, 
then “heathen marriage is not, and ought not to be treated as, 
indissoluble.” If the ground on which a deserted married 
convert may remain separate is not that the former marriage 
was devoid of the indissoluble character, but merely that 
infidelity is fornication, then the vinculwm must be understood 
to exist and remarriage to be forbidden. 

So far we have noticed 8. Augustine’s views only on the 
subject of the remarriage of converts, and not as regards mixed 
marriages entered upon as such in the first instance. In this 
matter also the prevalent tone of the age largely affected 
S. Augustine’s view. In the De fide et Operibus, commenting 
on the uncompromising attitude of 8. Cyprian with regard to 
mixed marriages, he says: “ Which (marriages) in our days are 
no longer accounted to be sins, since in truth nothing is 
enjoined in the New Testament on that head; and accordingly 
it has been believed that (such marriages) are either permissible, 
or disregarded as of a doubtful character.”? Similarly in the 
De Conjuguis Adulterinis he says: “For in the time of the 
revealed New Testament I do not find that it has been un- 
ambiguously declared in the Gospels or in any of the Apostolic 
epistles whether our Lord has forbidden the faithful to be 
joined to unbelievers.”* He introduces the statement, however 


1 Keble, Sequel of the Argument, &c., p. 114. 

* S. Augustine, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, lib. i. c. 17. (Migne’s Ed. 
tom. x. p. 424.) 

5. 8. Augustine, De Fide et Operibus, c. 19. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 221.) 

4S. Augustine, De Conjugiis Adulterinis, lib. i. c. 25. (Migne’s Ed. p. 469.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 515 


by remarking of the phrase “only in the Lord” that it may be 
taken in two ways, either as “remaining a Christian” or 
“marrying a Christian.” That the son of ὃ. Monnica should 
have been unwilling to admit that mixed marriages were 
altogether prohibited is intelligible; and while his alternative 
meaning for ἐν κυρίῳ is exclusively his own, and finds no 
support in early times or in the Greek writers, it is true that 
there is no entire unanimity in rendering the phrase ἐν κυρίῳ as 
having special reference to the Christian state at all. While, 
however, 8. Augustine is thus undetermined in his general 
statements on the subject, in a particular case which came 
within the scope of his influence he took a decided line. 

The letters to Rusticus and Benenatus appear to refer to but firm 
the same case of contemplated marriage. It was proposed ea, 
to marry a Christian lady to one who was “up to the present instance. 
time a pagan.” To the Bishop Benenatus, who was favourably 
disposed to the marriage, 8. Augustine writes, reminding him 

that in his episcopal fatherhood he ought to have a care for the 
Catholic Church, “that you should not effect that (marriage) 

with any soever, if indeed, as I have said, that be true which I 

have heard, but rather with a Catholic household, from which 

the Church may have not merely no opposition, but even 
faithful support.”! Writing to Rusticus, S. Augustine assumes 

that he knows “that a Christian woman can only be given by 

us to a Christian man; yet thou has not been willing to 
pronounce any such thing to me concerning thy son, whom 

I hear to be up to the present time a pagan.’’? 

The teaching of 8. Augustine on the subject under notice summary 
may then be summarised as follows. He holds that the? Fea 
teaching of 8. Paul, that a married convert should not leave tine’s 
the unbelieving partner, if he be willing to abide, is a counsel pape 
only, not a command, and that therefore, even in this case, 
separation of life is permissible, though ordinarily inexpedient ; 
he holds that infidelity is a species of fornication, and that as 
such it is a sufficient ground for separation; he expresses 
himself occasionally to the effect that the indissoluble vinculum 

1 §. Augustine, Zp. 253, ad Benenatum. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 1069.) 

2S. Augustine, Hp. 255, ad Rusticwm. (Migne’s Ed, tom. ii. p. 1070.) 

ae le 


S. Innocent 
I. Con- 
troversy on 
clerical 
digamy. 


516 HOLY MATRIMONY 


is proper to Christian marriage; he does not, however, admit 
the liberty of remarriage in the case of a married convert 
leaving the unbelieving partner, except perhaps in the case of 
the adultery of such unbelieving partner; it appears from his 
remarks that the general practice of the Church of his day 
was to hold catechumens bound by the full stringency of the 
Christian law of marriage; he is not clear as to whether 
mixed marriages in the first instance between a Christian and 
a non-Christian should be allowed, but when a particular case 
comes before him he stoutly combats its rightfulness. 

The letters of 8. Innocent I. on the digamy of the clergy 
may be cited as being an important illustration of a controversy 
which has a certain bearing on our subject.1 The controversy 
itself does not belong to an investigation into the Divine laws 
of marriage, but rather to the theology of Holy Orders. It 
would not therefore be in place to cite here all authorities 
which deal with it; but no apology need be made for quoting 
Dr. Von Déllinger’s able summary of them. 

“JIn the Apostolical Constitutions 6, 17, and in the 17th 
Apostolical Canon, it is declared that one who has married a 
second time cannot be received into the order of clergy. Yet 
the canon adds the condition, ‘if he did not take his first as 
well as his second wife until after baptism.’ This has always 
remained the principle of the Greek Church; only he was 
looked upon as impeded by digamy who had married again? as 
a Christian. If he had concluded the second marriage before 
baptism, it was supposed that the stain of incontinency in- 
volved in second marriage was taken away by the washing of 
baptism, and that consequently no impediment stood in the 
way of his entering the clerical order. In the Latin Church 
both theory and practice were different. Here it was merely 
affirmed that the cleric must be the most perfect example 
possible to his congregation; that if he had married twice he 





1 Innocentius universis episcopis in Toletana synodo constitutis, dilectissimis 
Sratribus, in Domino salutem. (Migne’s Ed. Patrologia Latina, tom. xx. p. 498.) 

Ibid. Victricio Episcopo Rotomagenst, cp. 11. c. 26. (Migne, p. 474.) 

Ibid. Rufo, Eusebio, EHustathio, Claudio et caeteris, episcopis Macedonibus et 
diaconis. (Migne, p. 526.) 

2 i.e, twice as a Christian. 


1“, eH 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES Bley 


became useless as a preacher of continence. Therefore the 
Popes, especially Siricius and Innocent I., and before them 
S. Ambrose, then 8. Augustine and others, insisted that even 
those who had taken the one wife before baptism, but the 
other as Christians, must remain excluded from clerical office. 
Men who married widows were placed in the same category. 
The Synods in Gaul, Spain, and Africa drew up their canons 
about second marriages on the same principles. The Bishops 
at Valence, in the year 374, ordered that at the ordination of 
a cleric the difference whether he had married again before or 
after baptism could not be recognised.t The Synod of Agde 
decreed, in the year 506, that presbyters and deacons who, in 
spite of their second marriage, had been ordained contrary to 
ecclesiastical law, should not exercise their ecclesiastical func- 
tions any longer; and the Synod at Carthage, in the year 
398, even deprived a bishop, who should knowingly ordain a 
digamist, of his power of ordination. Meanwhile the Oriental 
view of second marriages came more than once into conflict 
with that of the West. Thus the Bishops of Illyricum, in the 
year 414, stated in a letter to Pope Innocent? that with them a 
man who had had and lost a wife as a catechumen, but had 
taken another after baptism, would not be regarded as a 
digamist, for the first marriage was taken away with the rest 
of his sins by baptism. This view the Pope expressly con- 
tested—that which was good and innocent in itself, such as 
marriage, could not be done away by baptism; he asked 
whether, then, the children of such a marriage were to 
become illecitimate through the father’s baptism. Even S. 
Jerome adopted the standpoint of the Orientals. His friend 
Oceanus maintained that a Spanish Bishop, Carterius (against 


whom no other charge lay than that after the death of his wife, 


married before baptism, he had married again as a baptized 
Christian), had been ordained contrary to the Apostolical 
precept. Jerome,? on the contrary, defended the ordination 
of this man, whose case did not fall under the ecclesiastical 
1 ©. 1, Canones Apostolorum et Conciliorwm, Ed. Bruns. 11. iii. 146; I. 148. 


2 Epistole Pontiff. Rom. Ed. Constant. p. 831. 
3 Hp. 69, Opp. Ed. Paris, 1846, 1, 654. 


518 HOLY MATRIMONY 


idea of digamy, and declared (certainly with exaggeration) 
that the world was full of such ordinations. Yet when 
Rufinus attacked him on the point he moderated his declara- 
tion to this, that there were some bishops in the Church who 
found themselves in the same position as Carterius; and sub- 
mitted that he had merely given his opinion in answer to a 
question, without at all claiming that it must hold good.* 
In the West, later on, we find only Gennadius of Marseilles 
on the side of Jerome; he states the rule of the Church in 
this way—that he who has been twice married after baptism 
cannot be ordained ;? in opposition to which Pope Leo, in his 
letter to the African bishops in the year 446, still required 
universally that no one who had previously concluded a second 
marriage might remain in the priesthood.* In the East, how- 
ever, Theodore of Mopsuestia endeavoured to alter the dominant 
custom.” 4 

Most English Churchmen will feel that in the various ques- 
tions affecting the marriage or celibacy of the clergy, the 
Eastern Churches are on surer ground than the Churches of 
the West, and the controversy as to digamists would seem to 
be no exception. If the ground of 8. Paul’s instruction, that 
a bishop should not be a digamist, is merely the fact that his 
life has seen more than one sexual connexion, and is therefore 
continent only in a minor degree, then it is difficult to see how 
it is possible to meet the objection of S. Jerome, who says that 
a life of irregular indulgence before baptism should prove a 
greater bar to ordination than any mere repetition of marriage. 
If, however, the ordinary Eastern standpoint is accepted, which 
sees in Christian marriage an ordinance so holy that though a 
repetition may be conceded, such repetition is to be regarded as 
a concession to human weakness, and as in some sort a dis- 
honouring of the former tie, then the Eastern rule is entirely 
consistent. It is only Christian marriage which is thus 
holy, or which can thus come under a shadow of dishonour. 


1 Apol. adv. Rufin. i. ὁ. 32, Opp. ii. 424. 

2 De Eccles. dogm. ὁ. 71, Ed. Elmenhorst, p. 88. 

3 Opp. Ed. Ballerini, i. 674. 

* Von Dollinger, Hippolytus and Callistus, English trans. pp. 134-186. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 519 


Marriages or other unions prior to baptism are not to be counted. 
They probably never accepted the high conditions of Christian 
marriage, and they certainly never rose to its sanctity. Such 
as they were, with all their imperfections upon them, they may 
well be forgotten in the laver of regeneration, for all the 
purposes of Christian discipline. But those who repeat Chris- 
tian marriage, while they may be suffered among the faithful, 
are not to be preferred to the high spiritual offices of the 
Christian Church. It is clear that such a view would be very 
naturally held by those who maintained the right of the 
Christian convert to remarry. 

Theodoret (A.D. 387-453), commenting on 8. Paul, understands Theodoret. 
that the believing party ought not to give ground for separation, 
but that if the separation be caused by the unbeliever the be- 
lever is blameless. Whether in Theodoret’s view remarriage 
is open does not appear. Mixed marriages between Christians 
and non-Christians may not be entered upon. The command 
to marry “only in the Lord” is a command to marry only “one 
of the same faith and pious, in all sobriety and lawfulness.” ? 

The Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) had to legislate against Council of 
the abuse of the marriages of the lower members of the clerical ©'#*°4™ 
body, such as readers and singers, with heretical wives. When 
such marriages had already taken place provision was made for 
the due safeguarding of the faith of the children who, among 
other precautions, are not to be united in marriage “with a 
heretic, or a Jew, or a Greek,” unless such person “ promise to 
become a convert to the orthodox faith.” 

The Councils of the sixth century in the West, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that some of them fall chronologically within the 
period now under review, may be best noticed in connexion with 
the next period, with which they have more natural affinity. 

The era of Justinian does not, with them, represent any natural 
break. 

Reviewing the period from Constantine to Justinian, as re- summary 
gards mixed marriages and the position of married converts, we οὗ Period: 





1 Theodoret, on 1 Cor. vii. 18, 14. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 277.) 
2 Ibid. on 1 Cor. vii. 89. (Migne, p. 285.) 
3 Mansi, tom. vii. p. 363. 





Frequency 
of mixed 
marriages. 


Councils 
halting 
and 
partial, 


Some 
indecision 
of theory. 


Causes— 
(1) Cate- 
chumens. 


520 HOLY MATRIMONY 


notice certain features as prominent. One is the frequency of 
the abuse by which a Christian woman was united to a non- 
Christian husband. Of this abuse Nonna, S. Monnica, Laeta, 
and the wife of Synesius, are examples. 8. Jerome, with what- 
soever exaggeration he may be held to speak, must be referring 
to a custom of some prevalence when'he says that “very many 
matrons” who had contracted marriages with non-Christians 
would “be furious against” him. Practice affected both legis- 
lation and theory. The utterances of the Councils are halting 
and partial. Hither, as by the Council of Arles, the offender is 
put to penance for the fault, but eventually reconciled without 
being required to give up the marriage, or as by various African 
Councils, and by the Council of Chalcedon, the stricter discipline 
of the Church is not extended beyond the families of the clergy. 
S. Augustine is of opinion that even Holy Scripture is not clear 
upon the subject, and while admitting that 8. Cyprian had been 
very decided in his opposition to all mixed marriages, he 
remarks that 1 in his own day such marriages are not accounted 
sins. 

Various important influences may be score at work pre- 
disposing to this laxity. (1) The vast increase in the number 
of those catechumens who held back from baptism must be 
placed foremost. These men were by profession Christians, 
and they would be prone to seek Christian wives. Whether 
they were sufficiently Christians to be allowed to marry baptized 
women would to many seem a difficult question. Certainly 
their case was open to more consideration than that of the 
heathen who sought a Christian woman in marriage; and even 
such cases had not been altogether rare in the experience of 
the Christian Church. Certainly, again, if the catechumen 
must marry as such, he ought not to marry a heathen woman. 
Practically the Church may be said to have decided during this 
period in favour of the catechumen. Yet all the time the 
catechumen was unbaptized. And if one unbaptized man 
might marry a Christian woman, it was an easy step to the 
admission of another. If a catechumen, why not a Gon 
And so the circles of laxity would widen. 


ee eee ae Ὡμ γῇ ~ 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 521 


(2) The simple throwing over of Church restraint by ὦ 


Christian parents, in the matter of mixed marriages, woul 
almost certainly result from the laxity of Christian society, in 
the period following the conversion of Constantine. People of 
position would still at times experience some difficulty in finding 
suitable husbands for their daughters within the Christian 
circle, and would thereupon simply go outside that circle. If 
the benediction of the Church should not be accorded, they 
would dispense with it. Discipline in such matters was in 
fact paralysed. 

(3) The confusion of thought, which during the age between 
Constantine and Justinian treated baptized heretics as on the 
same plane with the heathen in the matter of marriage, would 
have some influence. If the baptized heretic was no better 
than the heathen, then the heathen was no worse than the 
baptized heretic. And as regards baptized heretics, the clergy 
themselves were, in the lower ranks, all too prone to regard 
union with them as permissible even in their own eases. 

The fact of the practice of mixed marriages between 
Christians and non-Christians is thus undoubted, and the 
reasons for it not far to seek. It has, however, been seen that, 
notwithstanding the hesitancy of S. Augustine, other Christian 
writers are by no means in favour of the sufferance of these 
mixed marriages. ὃ. Ambrose says that it is not enough for 
the woman, whom a /idelis would marry, to be a Christian, 
unless she, as well as her husband, has “been initiated by the 
sacrament of baptism.” Ὁ. Jerome says that Christian women 
who enter on such marriages “ have prostituted the members of 
Christ.” §. Augustine might express the view that the matter 
was open to doubt, but in a particular case which came before 
him he may be said to have gone out of his way to emphasize 
the wrongfulness of the practice. Theodoret sees in the 
command to marry “only in the Lord” a command to marry 
only a Christian. 

On the whole, it may be said of the period from Constantine 
to Justinian, in the matter of marriages between Christians 
and non-Christians, (1) that its practice was very lax, (2) that 
its theory was on the whole adverse to the laxity which found 


d Christian 
parents 


impatient 
of restraint. 


(3) Con- 
fusion of 
heathens 
and 
heretics, 


But 
writers of 
weight 
oppose the 
prevalent 
laxity. 


Re- 
marriage 
of converts 
not 
favoured. 


Reason 
found in 
the cate- 
chumens, 


522 HOLY MATRIMONY 


place in its practice, and (3) that its discipline confined itself 
to the practicable, which was but little. 

It may seem at first sight strange that a period thus 
characterised by laxity in the matter of mixed marriages 
should, at least in Africa, be the strictest of all the periods of 
the Christian Church in its attitude towards the divorce and 
remarriage of converts. But in truth there is the closest 
and most natural relationship between these two aspects of 
the period. The very fact that catechumens were not un- 
commonly admitted to marriage with Christian women, and 
that this concession was sometimes extended even to a gentilis, 
made it simply imperative in the interests of the Christian 
partner, that the same high conditions which were to her 
involved in marriage should be required of the unbaptized 
man before he could be admitted as her husband. In 
the case of a Christian husband nothing short of these 
conditions would be admitted, and it would have been simply 
monstrous if anything short of them had been admitted in 
another. 

Again, supposing that a catechumen wished to marry, not a 
Christian woman, but a catechumena, or even a gentilis, it was 
clearly against the interests of Christian discipline that people 
professing Christianity, even though not baptized, should be 
allowed to contract unions of the lax or temporary character too 
much in vogue among the Romans. They must be distinctly 
made to understand that the Christian Church would hold 
them bound, as it held its own members bound. Otherwise 
scandal would be inevitable, and all kinds of complications 
would ensue. Accordingly the tendency of the period was to 
treat catechumens as bound by the same laws of marriage as 
baptized Christians. But it is evident that if catechumens, 
and even under certain circumstances those who were altogether 
alien from the Church, were thus treated as bound by the 
Christian laws of marriage, the distinction between Christian 
and non-Christian marriage would become hopelessly confused, 
and that the tendency would be to ignore the distinction 
altogether. The stricter would hold the catechumen in- 
dissolubly married, as δ’ Augustine did; the less strict might. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 523 


be disposed to hold that Christian marriage was no more 
indissoluble than non-Christian. 

It is thus not difficult to find an explanation for the view of 
S. Augustine, and for the strictness of the practice of at least 
the African Churches of his day. It would, however, as we 
have seen, be an entire mistake to suppose that during this 
period the right of the married convert to divorce and re- 
marriage fell out from the teaching of the Church. 5%. 
Chrysostom holds that the great concession of the Apostolic 
instruction lies, not in the permission to divorce, but in the 
permission to continue an unequal marriage. Separation is 
permitted if the unbeliever be the cause of it, whether by 
desertion or by unrighteous demands. Separation appears with 
Ὁ. Chrysostom to involve the right to remarry. ὃ. Ambrose 
understands “that the Apostle denied that it was of the law 
Divine that any marriage whatsoever should be dissolved .. . 
but he took away all blame from the partner deserted,” 
presumably if such partner contracted a second marriage. 
8. Jerome also probably admits remarriage, as well as the right 
of separation. Ambrosiaster is unmistakeable in his assertion 
of the right of remarriage. The long controversy with regard 
to the ordination of digamists, in which it was held on one 
hand that marriages prior to baptism ought not to count, 
shows the strong feeling prevalent that Christian marriage was 
different from, and holier than, marriage outside Christianity. 
Theodoret teaches that the Christian partner is free from 
blame if the unbeliever bring about the separation. 


C. The Hast after Justinian. 
AUTHORITIES. 
._ Tue Nicenz Arapic COLLECTION OF CANONS. 
Canon 67.1 


. . et quaecunque mulier fidelis viro infideli nupserit, ipsa 
quoque a communione fidelium separetur: quae si poenitentiam 
maleficil egerit, et eum virum, quem habere non poterat, id est 
infidelem, dimiserit, non ‘est recipienda, nisi eo modo, quo recipitur 
is, qui postquam fidem negavit, ad fidem revertitur; debetque ipsa 


1 Mansi, tom, 11. p. 975. 


But 

right of 
remarriage 
maintained 
by various 
writers. 


524 HOLY MATRIMONY 


infidelem relinquere: erit autem poenitentia ejus qui ad fidem 
revertitur, et ejus quae virum infidelem reliquit, ferre cilicium, 
dormire super cinerem: constituendumque est eis de jejunio et de 
bonis operibus, prout conveniat; et postea licebit cum fidelibus 
conversari, et communionem sacram accipere; et qui contradixerit, 
a synodo excommunicatur, 


CouncIL iv Trutro (QUINISEXT), A.D. 692. 
Canon 72.1 

Μὴ ἐξέστω ὀρθόδοξον ἄνδρα αἱρετικῃῇ συνάπτεσθαι γυναικὶ, μήτε 
μὴν αἱρετικῷ ἀνδρὶ γυναῖκα ὀρθόδοξον ζεύγνυσθαι" ἀλλ᾽ εἰ καὶ φανῆ 
τι τοιοῦτον ὑπό τινος τῶν ἁπάντων γινόμενον, ἄκυρον ἡγεῖσθαι τὸν 
» Ν) \ Υ̓ 7 / > Ν \ \ 
γάμον, καὶ TO ἄθεσμον διαλύεσθαι συνοικέσιον. οὐ yap χρὴ τὰ 
” ᾿ , ὃ ἘΞ βά rd λέ θ \ a “a 
ἄμικτα μιγνύναι, οὐδε TH προβάτῳ λύκον συμπλέκεσθαι, καὶ TH τοῦ 
ips / Ν “Ἂ id “ nN 5 \ — Ν 
χριστοῦ μερίδι τὸν τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν κλῆρον. εἰ δὲ παραβῃ τις τὰ 
ΡΤ Γρὶ εὐ ΄ > ΄, 5) ΄ " 2 Ss ΄ὔ 
Tap ἡμῶν ὁρίσθέντα, ἀφοριζέσθω. εἰ δέ τινες ἔτι ἐν τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ 
τυγχάνοντες, καὶ οὔπω τῇ τῶν ὀρθοδόξων ἐγκαταλεγόντες ποίμνῃ 

3 7 / 7 id / > ε \ Ν Ν > - 
ἀλλήλοις γάμω νομίμῳ ἡρμόσθησαν" εἶτα ὁ μὲν TO καλὸν ἐκλεξάμενος 

“Gy Ης “Ὰ LA θ / ὃ ε δὲ ε \ la) lal λά 

τῷ φωτὶ τῆς ἀληθείας προσέδραμεν, ὁ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ τῆς πλάνης κατε- 
/ “ a Ν \ ld 5 / 5 - 5 / > lad 
σχέθη δεσμοῦ, μὴ πρὸς τὰς θείας ἀτενίσαι ἀκτῖνας ἐλόμενος. εὐδοκεῖ 
δὲ τῷ πιστῴ ἡ ἄπιστος συνοικεῖν, ἢ τὸ ἐμπαλιν ὁ ἄπιστος τῇ πιστῇ, 

Χ ’ ss Ν A > / ¢ / ἊΝ ε st 
μὴ χωριζέσθωσαν κατὰ τὸν θεῖον ἀπόστολον. ἡγίασται γὰρ ὁ ἄπιστος 


» 5 a \ ἈΠΕ ἢ εν» ἈΠ ἘΝ ταὶ \ 
avip ἐν ΤΊ γυναίικι, και ἡγιᾶάασται 1) απιστος γυνή €V τῷ ἀνδρὶ. 


THEOPHYLACT. 
I PIE OS Oise 
“Tots δὲ λοιποῖς κιτ.λ. Τί λέγεις ; ἂν μὲν ἄπιστος, μενέτω μετὰ 


A / ’ ‘ 7 3. ΄ ? “A 4 ς 
τῆς γυναικός" ἂν δὲ πόρνος, οὐκέτι: Καίτοι χείρων τῆς πορνείας ἡ 
ἀπιστία. Χείρων pev' GAN ὁ Θεὸς μᾶλλον τὰ ἡμέτερα ἐκδικεῖ, ἣ τὰ 
οἰκεῖα. “Ades γὰρ, φησὶ, τὴν θυσίαν σου καὶ καταλλάγηθι τῷ ἀδελφῷ 

Ν lay \ i / / > = Ji 
cov. Kat τῶν μὲν μυρίων ταλάντων κατεφρόνησεν αὐτῳ. διαφερόντων" 
τὴν δὲ εἰς τὸν ἑκατὸν δηνάρια ὀφείλοντα ὕβριν ἐξεδίκησεν. Οὕτως οὖν 

Ἄ 9 ἴω \ lal 3s ‘é ϑ > Κα > ᾿ “a X x n 
καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὸ τῆς ἀπιστίας εἰς αὐτὸν ἀναφερόμενον παρορᾷ" τὸ δὲ τῆς 
πορνείας κολάζει ὡς εἰς τὴν γυναῖκα, 

4 ε x 3 Ng x μ id 
Τινὲς δέ φασιν ὅτι ἢ μὲν ἀπιστία κατὰ ἄγνοιαν γίνεται, ἣν Kal. εἰκὸς 
an «ε Ἂν Mace 5 Ti Ν to 7 Ψ Ἂς " Ψ 
παυθῆναι, ὡς καὶ αὑτὸς φησι" Ti γὰρ οἶδας, γῦναι, εἰ τὸν ἄνδρα σώσεις ; 
Ἢ δὲ πορνεία, δι ὁμολογουμένην πονηρίαν γίνεται. ἤλλλως τε καὶ 6 


3 7 4 ἴω an 
πόρνος ἔφθασεν ἑαυτὸν διαστήσας. “Apas yap τὰ μέλη αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς 





1 Mansi, tom. xi. p. 976. 
* Migne’s Ed, tom. ii. p, 644, 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 525 


Q 3 ie /, & « Ν ” dQN “ » \ 
γυναικὸς ἐποίησε πόρνης μέλη. Ὃ δὲ ἄπιστος οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν εἰς τὴν 
\ ¢ aA \ = ) SA ν᾽ ε , \ 
σαρκικὴν ἕνωσιν. Μᾶλλον μὲν οὖν δ’ αὐτῆς ἴσως ἑνωθήσεται, Kat 
\ Ἂν / Ψ Ν ΄ὔ “ ἐν > Ἂς y+ ’ὔ lal 
κατὰ τὴν πίστιν" ἵνα μὴ λέγω, ὅτι Kal ἀνατροπὴ ἔμελλε γίνεσθαι τοῦ 
΄, \ \ a » ΄ὔ a . ΄ 3 ΄ κ \ 
βίου, Kat διαβολὴ τοῦ HvayyeAtov, εἰ τὸ πιστὸν μέρος ἐχωρίζετο TOU μὴ 
πεπιστευκότος. Ταῦτα δὲ νόει, ὅτε συνεζύγησαν μὲν ἐν ἀπιστίᾳ ὄντες 
5 , ἔχις Τὴ \ Se oS , TN \ 7A τς ε 
ἀμφότεροι, ἐπίστευσε δὲ τὸ Ev μέρος. “Hav γὰρ προυπῆρχε πιστὸς ὁ 
ΞΟ Ae Ἂν 557 IEA Ν ” 7 > \ i 

ἀνὴρ, ἢ ἢ γυνὴ, οὐδόλως ἐξῆν πρὸς ἄπιστον ζεύγνυσθαι. Οὐ yap εἶπεν, 
Hi tis βούλεται λαβεῖν ἄπιστον, ἀλλ᾽, Hi τις ἔχει. ᾿Αλλ’ οὐδὲ ἁπλῶς 
συνοικίζει τῷ ἀπίστῳ τὸ πιστὸν μέρος, ἀλλὰ βουλομένῳ: Τὸ γὰρ, 


A “a 5 5 \ “Δ 2 7 
Συνευδοκεῖ τοῦτο ἐστιν, ἀντὶ TOV, εἰ βούλεται. 


Ei δὲ 6 ἄπιστος χωρίζεται, χωριζέσθω. Οἷον εἰ κελεύει σοι ἢ 
κοινωνῆσαι τῆς ἀπιστίας αὐτῷ, ἢ ἀναχωρεῖν τοῦ γάμου, ἀναχωρείτω. 
Βέλτιον γὰρ τὸν γάμον, ἢ τὴν εὐσέβειαν λυθῆναι. 

Οὐ δεδούλωται ὁ ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἡ ἀδελφὴ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις" ἐν δὲ εἰρήνῃ 

i‘ ε “ € / 5 » ΄ Ἂς / Ν A a“ 
κέκληκεν ὑμᾶς ὁ Θεός. Ki μάχεταί σοι, φησὶ, διότι μὴ κοινωνεῖς τῆς 
5 7 fe 2 \ 7 > x fal Hi > 
ἀπιστίας, διαζύγηθι. Οὐ γὰρ δεδούλωσαι εἰς τὰ τοιαῦτα" τουτέστιν, οὐ 

/ 14 ΨΨ» \ » A , - Ν 
καταναγκάζει βαστάξειν αὐτὸν καὶ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις. Βέλτιον γὰρ 
ἀπαλλαγῆναι ἢ μάχεσθαι" ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ ὁ Θεὸς βούλεται τοῦτο. “Ev γὰρ 
εἰρήνῃ κέκληκεν ὑμᾶς. "στε εἰ μάχεται, ἐκεῖνος παρέσχε τὴν αἰτίαν 
τοῦ διαζυγίου. 


In the East, from the period of Justinian onwards, it is on 
the whole true to say that mixed marriages between Christians The East 
and non-Christians have been peremptorily forbidden, and that eee 
the divorce and remarriage of Christian converts have been, 
under certain conditions, allowed. 

The collection of canons known as the Nicene-Arabie is of the 
uncertain date, though certainly not Nicene; and it is of no Ricene- 
proper ecclesiastical authority. But the canons are at least canons. 
interesting, as representing views 1n vogue at the time of their 
compilation or fabrication which may perhaps be referred to 
the sixth or seventh century.! In this light Canon 67 is 
very significant. It rules that a baptized Christian woman 
( fidelts) who marries an unbeliever is to be excluded from com- 
munion ; and that she is only to be restored if she forsakes the 





1 On the Nicene-Arabic Canons see Hefele, History of the Councils, Eng. tr. i. 
pp. 363, 364. 
Renaudot refers the collection to the time of Muhammad. 


The Civil 
Law. 


The 
Council 
in Trullo. 


526 HOLY MATRIMONY 


unbeliever, and only then in the same way as one is reconciled 
who has denied the faitht The ruling that such mixed 
marriages are not only to be held irregular, but that they are 
to be treated as in all cases null and void, is an advance in 
logical consistency on the pronouncements of the last period, 
but is distinctly different from those pronouncements. It was 
not the discipline of the fourth century, but it is a discipline 
which commends itself to the mind of the seventh century. 

The Civil Law, before Justinian, contained some provisions 
with regard to marriage between Christian Romans and non- 
Christians who were Jews or barbarians, but they were less of 
religious than of secular import. The same is true of the 
Novel issued by the Emperor Justin in A.D. 566, in which 
those mixed marriages which had taken place during the 
irruption of barbarians into the provinces of Osréene and 
Mesopotamia were ratified, but similar unions forbidden for 
the future.2 It is to be remembered, however, that since 
Justinian, in his constitution of the 18th October, A.p. 530, 
had assigned to the sacred canons equal force of law with the 
secular statutes, the solemnization of marriages between be- 
levers and heathen was from that date abundantly irregular ; 
but here again, as in the matter of divorce, irregularity and not 
invalidity would be the consequence of disobedience. 

The most important of the utterances of the Eastern Church 
of this period upon the subject is to be found in the 72nd 
Canon of the Council in Trullo (A.D, 692). That Council, 
known in the West as the Quinisext, rules that any marriage 
between an orthodox Christian and a heretic is to be treated as 
null and void, on the ground that “it ought not to be that the 
incongruous should be mingled, or that a wolf should be con- 
joined with a lamb, or the lot of sinners with the portion of 
Christ.” The canon goes on to provide that married converts 
may, notwithstanding, retain their partners if these, though un- 
willing to hecome Christians, are content to abide. 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 975. 

2 Zacharid, Jus Graeco-Romanum, 111. 8. (Also as Nov. 154 in the Corpus 
Juris Civilis.) 

3 Mansi, tom, xi. p. 976. 


— 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 527 


The Canon of the Council in Zullo still fails to make the 
necessary distinction between the baptized heretic and the 
heathen, but so far at least as the heathen or non-Christian is 
concerned, the provisions of the canon have continued, and 
remain the law of the East at the present day. 

Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria in the eleventh century, Theophy- 
wrote a commentary on 1 Corinthians, in which, as in his other #** 
commentaries, he is mainly indebted to 8. Chrysostom. It is 
none the less interesting as shewing that the views of 
S. Chrysostom in the matter before us entirely commended 
themselves to a prelate of the time of Alexius Comnenus. He 
points out very distinctly that the Pauline privilege has nothing 
to do with those who being Christians would wish to contract 
for the first time a marriage with non-Christians. “ But observe 
this, that they were united while they were both in unbelief, 
and that one party afterwards received the faith. For if either 
the man or woman had been one of the faithful before marriage, 
marriage with an unbeliever would have been altogether in- 
admissible. For he said not, ‘If any desire to take an 
unbeliever, but ‘If any have.’”! Theophylact understands 
χωρίζεται as S. Chrysostom understands it. “Therefore if he 
command thee either to share his unbelief, or to recede from 
the marriage, then let the marriage be receded from. For it is 
better that the marriage rather than that piety should be dis- 
solved.” χωρίζεται then is understood to mean not simply 
departs, but rather ts the cause of separation. 

The Eastern Churches do not shew any long line of difficulties 
on the subject of married converts, analogous to the experience 
of the later Western Church. They had taken the position 
that divorce was admissible, and admissible for several causes. 
The case of an unbelieving partner who was responsible for the 
separation was simply added to the lst, and became one of the 
many recognised causes of divorce. It was too clear to the 
Hastern mind that the marriage was dissoluble; and it appears 
to have become more or less an accepted principle that the 
refusal of the unbelieving partner to be converted was sufficient 
ground for the issue of a divorce. Thus in the time of the 


1 Theophylact, in 1 Cor, vit. (Migne’s Ed. tom, ii. p. 644.) 


Divorce 
accorded 
on the 
ground of 
unbelief. 


Instances. 


5028 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Patriarch Theodotus II. (A.p. 1151-1153) Basilicus Bicinator 
applied for a divorce on the ground that his wife declined to 
follow him in accepting the Christian faith, notwithstanding 
his endeavours to convert her; and the Patriarch granted the 
divorce.? 

As in all other cases of divorce in the East, divorce in the 
case of a married convert carries with it the right to marry 
again. 

Instances of marriages contracted between Eastern Christians 
and those who were not Christians are not wanting in the later 
history of the East, but they occur under circumstances which 
deprive them of any religious significance. The Church might 
be overborne to acquiescence in such marriages, but her spirit 
has throughout been entirely opposed to them. 

In the year 988, when Vladimir requested the hand of Anna, 
the sister of the Emperors Basil 11. and Constantine VIIL., the 
reply given to him was, that “it beseems not a Christian 
woman that she should become the wife of one unbaptized. 
But if thou wilt profess thyself a Christian, thou shalt receive 
the hand of the princess.” Vladimir replied that he was 
ready for baptism, but required the emperors first to send him 
their sister as a pledge of their good faith. To this demand 
the emperors acceded, but before the wedding took place 
Vladimir was baptized in the church of the Panagia at 
Cherson. In the case of this marriage therefore the emperors 
were careful that Christian teaching should in all points be 
respected. 

In some other cases it was not so. The Emperor Theophilus, 
in A.D. 838, desiring to marry his sister Helen to the Persian 
Theophobus, enacted a law to legitimate marriage between 
Romans and Persians. Maria Palaeologina, the daughter of the 
Emperor Michael VIII, Palaeologus (4.D. 1261-1282), was 
betrothed to Hulagu, the Khan of the Mongols, and after his 
death was married to his successor, Abaha-Khan. Euphrosyne, 
the daughter of the same emperor, was given in marriage as a 
child to Noga, a Scythian chieftain. Theodora, the daughter of 
the Emperor John VI. (Cantacuzene), married in A.D. 1346 the 


1 Zhishman, Das Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 757. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 029 


Sultan Urkhan. Eudoxia Comnena, the daughter of Alexius III. 
of Trebizond, was married about A.D. 1380 to the Turkish 
Governor Tajedhin. David [1., the last emperor of Trebizond, 
sought to confirm his aluance with Usun Khagan, the leader of 
the Turcomans, by giving him his niece Catharine Comnena in 
marriage (A.D. 1456). Anna Comnena, daughter of the same 
emperor, was married to Mohamimed Zagan, the Musalman 
Viceroy of Macedonia; but in this case the practice reached 
a lower deep by the perversion of Anna to Islam as a pre- 
liminary of the union, and theologically, therefore, the marriage 
had no pretension to the Christian character.! 

It is no secret that these evil examples have not failed to be 
copied by many Eastern Christians of less exalted position ; 
but it does not appear that the Eastern Church has ever 
favoured the practice, or that her theory has anything but 
entire condemnation for such mixed unions. 


D. The West after Justinian. 


AUTHORITIES. 
Counci, or AcpeE (4.0. 506).? 
Canon 67. 
Quoniam non oportet cum omnibus haereticis miscere connubia, 
et vel filios vel filias dare, sed potius accipere, si tamen profitentur 
Christianos futuros esse se et catholicos. 


Seconp CounciIL OF ORLEANS (4.D. 533).° 
Placuit ut nullus Christianus Judaeam, neque Judaeus Chris- 
tianam in matrimonio ducat uxorem, quia inter hujusmodi personas 
illicitas nuptias esse censemus. Qui si commoniti a consortio hoc se 
separare distulerint, a communionis gratia sunt sine dubio submovendi, 


Counc or CLERMONT (Concilium Arvernense, 535 .D.).4 
Canon 6. 
Si quis Judaicae pravitati jugali societate conjungitur, et seu 
Christiana Judaeo, seu Judaeus Christianae mulieri carnali consortio 
misceatur, quicumque horum tantum nefas admisisse dignoscitur, 





1 This list is taken from Zhishman, Das Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, 


Ἰὼ ὅλ}: 
2 Mansi, tom. vili. p. 336. 3 Ibid. p. 838. 4 Ibid. p. 861. 


ce 
} 


530 HOLY MATRIMONY 


a Christianorum coetu atque convivio, et communione ecclesiae, 
cujus sociatur hostibus, segregetur. 


TuHirp CouNcIL OF ORLEANS (A.D. 538).1 
Canon 13, 


Christianis quoque omnibus interdicimus, ne Judaeorum conjugus 
misceantur: quod si fecerint, usque ad sequestrationem, quisquis 
ille est, communione pellatur. . . . 


Councit or OrLEANS (4.0. 541).? 
Canon 31. 


Hoe etiam decernimus observandum . . . si Judaeus Christianam 
ancillam suam 5101 crediderit sociandam . . . mancipiorum amissione 


multetur. 
Tuirpd Councint or ToLepo (A.D. 589). 


Cap. 14. 


Suggerente consilio, id gloriosissimus dominus noster canonibus 
inserendum praecipit, ut Judaeis non liceat Christianas habere 
uxores vel concubinas, neque mancipia Christiana comparare in 
usus proprios: sed et si qui fills ex tali conjugio nati sunt, assu- 
mendos esse ad baptismum. ... 


FourtH Councit ΟΕ ToLepo (633 a.p.).4 


Canon 63. 

Judaei qui Christianos mulieres in conjugio habent, admoneantur 
ab episcopo civitatis ipsius, ut si cum eis permanere cupiunt, 
Christiani efficiantur. Quod si admoniti noluerint, separentur: quia 
non potest infidelis in ejus permanere conjugio, quae jam in 
Christianam translata est fidem. ili autem qui ex talibus nati 
existunt, fidem atque conditionem matris sequantur. Similiter et hi 
qui procreati sunt de infidelibus mulheribus et (in)fidelibus viris, 
Christianam sequantur religionem, non Judaicam superstitionem. 


SEVENTEENTH CounciL oF Touepo (694 a.p.).° 


Sed et filios eorum (Judaeorum) utriusque sexus decernimus, ut a 
septimo anno eorum nullam cum parentibus suis habitationem aut 
societatem habentes, ipsi eorum domini, qui eos acceperint, per 





1 Mansi, tom. ix. p. 15. 2 Lbid. tom.1x. pol 18. 
3 [bid. tom. vi. p. 996. 4 Ibid. tom. x. p. 684. 5 Lbid. tom. xii. p. 102. 


a Pe 


Ta «φγνοιφα ar Pa ς 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES Se 


fidelissimos Christianos eos nutriendos contradant, ea scilicet ratione, 
ut et masculos Christianis foeminis in conjugio copulent, et foeminas 
Christianis similiter viris maritali societate adjungant. 


Counoin or Tarragona (Tarraconense Concilium, 1239 a.p.). 


In quo constitutiones episcopt Sabinensis confirmantur,* 


Canon 4. 
Contra Judaeos et Sarracenos. 

Item, statuimus, quod Judaei et Sarraceni a Christianis in habitu 
distinguantur, et nutrices vel mulieres non teneant Christianas. Et 
sl quae sunt Christianae, quae Judaeis vel Sarracenis cohabitent, 
nisi infra duos menses a tempore publicationis istius constitutionis 
recesserint, quantumcunque poenitentiam fecerint, numquam tradantur 
ecclesiasticae sepulturae, nisi de metropolitani licentia special. 


Councit or Tripur (895 a.D.).? 
Cap. 39. 
Si quis alienigenam in matrimonium duxerit, habere debebit. 


Synodus Romana ait: Quod non dimittenda sit uxor post 
baptismum, quae habita est et ante baptismum. In _ baptismo 
solvuntur crimina, non tamen legitima conjugia. Cum enim in 
baptismo transmigrat de vita in vitam, et non mutat uxorem 
legitimam, quomodo mutat eam, qui non mutat vitam, sed transit de 


gente ad gentem. 
THEODORE’S PENITENTIAL. 


BGO ksia Gaal 2.3 
§ 17. Si quis dimiserit gentilis gentilem uxorem, post baptismum 
in potestate eis* erit, habere eam vel non habere. 
§ 18. Simili modo, si unus eorum baptizatus erit, alter gentilis, sic 
ut Apostolus dixit, ‘“Infidelis, si discedit, discedat,” ergo cujus uxor 
est infidelis et gentilis et non potest converti, dimittatur. 


CapituLA DacHERIANA.® 
Cujus uxor est infidelis et gentilis et non potest eam convertere, 
dimittat eam. 


Mansi, tom. xxili. p. 513. 

Hartzheim, Concilia Germaniae, tom. ii. p. 403. 

Haddan and Stubbs, iii. p. 200. 

Wasserschleben reads ejus. 

Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der abendldndische Kirche, p. 151. 


29 Me 2 


Oo μι ὦ co κα 


ζι 


HOLY MATRIMONY 


OS 
bo 


HINcMAR. 
De Divortio Lotharti et Tetbergae. Int. 214 


Fit et interdum, causa non contemnenda interveniente, quod erat 
illicitum licitum, cum legaliter initum conjugium dissolvi permittitur 
causa infidelitatis. Unde Paulus dicit: ‘Si quis frater uxorem 
habeat infidelem, et haee consentit habitare cum illo, non dimittat 
illam. Ht si qua mulier habet virum infidelem, et hic consentit 


habitare cum 1118, non relinquat virum,” 


et post pauca: “Quod si 
infidelis discedit, discedat”; vel cum causa fornicationis uxor relin- 
quitur, de qua item Paulus dicit: “ His autem qui in matrimonio 
juncti sunt, praecipio non ego, sed Dominus, uxorem a viro non 
discedere ; quod si discesserit, manere innuptam, et virum uxorem 
non dimittere.” Quod aequa lance pensatur, ut, si dimiserit, in 
caelibatu. permaneat. Quae disjunctio inter fideles post initum 
conjugium fieri non potest, nisi causa fornicationis, et amore contin- 
entiae. 


ΠΙᾺ enim non debet imputari matrimonium quod extra Dei 

decretum factum est. 
Hueco or 8S. Victor. 
De Sacramentis, lib, ii. par. 2,. cap. 11.? 

Quid est ergo, inquiunt, quod beatus Ambrosius dicit: non est 
ratum conjugium praeter Deum; et ideo non est peccatum dimissio 
propter Deum si aliis copuletur. Item beatus Gregorius dicit: 
Dimissio propter Deum non est peccatum si alii conjungatur. 
TInjuria enim Creatoris solvit jus matrimonii. 


Dib. 11. pars 2, 80: 11}. 

Si infidelis discedit, discedat. Non est subditus servituti frater in 
ejusmodt. Servituti subditus esset si vel traheretur invitus, vel - 
teneretur non voluntarius. Nihil illi debet, sive discedat sive 
maneat ; perdidit Jus suum qui Creatori injuriam fecit. Si ergo 
discedit infidelis, discedat; nihil ad nos: non cogitur fidelis quasi 
aliquo debito obligatus, aut sequi discedentem, aut sustinere contem- 
nentem. Non est subjectus servituti, liber est ut faciat quod νυ], 
tantum in Domino, ducat uxorem si vir 1116 est; si femina est, nubat. 
Quam vult societatem eligat; non jam tenetur debito prioris socie- 
tatis, cujus jus solutum est propter injuriam Creatoris. Quae videlicet 


} Migne’s Ed, tom. i. p. 782. 
2 Migne, Pot. Lat. tom, clxxvi. p. 506. 3 Ibid. p. 508. 





REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 099 


Injuria Creatoris non solum tune excusat fidelem, quando ab infideli 
propter Deum dimissus alteri sine culpa conjungitur; sed tune etiam 
excusat quando ipse fidelis magis societatem fidelem eligens infidelem 
cohabitare quidem, volentem, sed fidem recipere renuentem Christiana 
devotione detestatur. Sive enim discedat sive manere eligat infidelis, 
nihil debet illi qui fidelis factus est. Nemo illum cogere potest quin 
faciat quod velit. Injuria Creatoris solvit jus matrimonii. 


GRATIAN. 
Decretum (Concordantia Discordantium Canonum). 
Secunda Pars. Causa xxviii. Quaest. I. ce. 17. 
Gratian : 

Item illud Augustini: ‘‘ Non est ratum conjugium, quod sine Deo 
est,” non negat conjugium esse inter infideles. Conjugium enim aliud 
est legitimum et non ratum, aliud ratum et non legitimum, aliud 
legitimum et ratum. Legitimum conjugium est, quod legali institu- 
tione vel provinciae moribus contrahitur. Hoc inter infideles ratum 
non est, quia non est firmum et inviolabile conjugium eorum. Dato 
enim libello repudii licet eis discedere ab invicem, et aliis copulari 
lege fori, non lege poli, quam non secuntur. Inter fideles vero ratum 
conjugium est, quia conjugia, semel inita inter eos, ulterius solvi non 
possunt. Horum quedam sunt legitima, veluti cum uxor a parentibus 
traditur, a sponso dotatur, et a sacerdote benedicitur. Hee talia 
conjugia legitima et rata appellantur. ITllorum vero conjugia, qui 
contemptis omnibus illis solempnitatibus solo affectu aliquam sibi in 
conjugem copulant, hujuscemodi conjugium non Jegitimum, sed ratum 
tantummodo esse creditur. 


Secunda Pars. Causa xxvill. Quaest. [1]. 
ce. 1. Non potest aliquis post baptismum alteram ducere vivente ea, 
quae ante baptismum sibi fuerit virgo copulata. 
Item ex concilio Meldensi. [c. I.] 
Si quis habuerit uxorem virginem ante baptismum, vivente illa 
post baptismum alteram habere non potest. Crimina enim in 
baptismo solvuntur, non conjugia. 


Gregorius autem contra testatur, dicens : 
c. 2. Licet fideli uxorem aliam ducere, quam Christianae fidei odio 
infidelis dimittit. 
‘Si infidelis discedit odio Christianae fidei, discedat. Non est 
enim frater aut soror subjectus servituti in hujusmodi.” Non est 


534 HOLY MATRIMONY 


enim peccatum dimisso propter Deum, si alii se copulaverit. Con- 
tumelia quippe creatoris solvit jus matrimonii circa eum, qui re- 
linquitur, Infidelis autem discedens et in Deum peccat, et in 
matrimonium, nec est ei fides servanda conjugii, qui propterea 
discessit, ne audiret Christum esse Deum Christianorum conjugiorum. 


Gratian : 

His distinguendum est, aliud esse dimittere volentem cohabitare, 
atque aliud discedentem non sequi. Volentem enim cobhabitare licet 
quidem dimittere, sed non ea vivente aliam superducere ; discedentem 
vero sequi non oportet, et ea vivente aliam ducere licet. Verum 
hoc non nisi de his intelligendum est, qui in infidelitate sibi copulati 
sunt. Ceterum si ad fidem uterque conversus est, vel si uterque 
fidelis matrimonio conjunctus est, et procedente tempore alter eorum a 
fide discesserit, et odio fidei conjugem dereliquerit, derelictus disceden- 
tem non comitabitur : non tamen illa vivente alteram ducere poterit, 
quia ratum conjugium fuerat inter eos, quod nullo modo solvi potest. 


Rowanp. } 


Usquequaque verum est, quod matrimonium legitimum et con- 
summatum inter fideles ratum, 1.6. indissolubile consistit, apud 
infideles vero vel fidelem et infidelem dissolvi utique valet. Sed 
notandum, quod infideli volenti cohabitare et fidei praedicationem 
minime abhorrenti dimissa, aliam sibi ea viventi fideli copulare 
minime licet. Verum, si odio Christianae fidei discesserit, aut idola 
coluerit, sive ad maleficium virum fidelem compellere voluerit, illam 
dimittere et aliain assumere sanctorum consona sanctione permittitur. 


Peter LoMBARD. 
Sentences, iv. dist. 39, 7.? 


Sed distinguendum est hic aliud esse dimittere volentem co- 
habitare, aliud dimitti propter Deum ab illo qui horret nomen 
Christi. Ibi lex benevolentiae non servatur, hic veritas custoditur. 
Et ideo cum liceat dimittere volentem cohabitare, non tamen ea 
vivente aliam ducere licet. Discedentem vero sequi non oportet: 
et ea vivente aliam ducere licet. Sed hoc non est intelligendum, 
nisi de his qui in infidelitate sibi copulati sunt. Sed si ad fidem 
uterque conversus est, vel si uterque fidelis matrimonio conjunctus 
est, et post alter eorum a fide discesserit, et odio fidei conjugem 
reliquerit ; dimissus discedentem non comitabitur, nec tamen illa 





1 Thaner, Die Summa Magistri Rolandi, 133 sq. quoted by Freisen, 812. 
2 Migne, Pat. Lat. tom excii. p. 936. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 835 
vivente alteram ducere poterit, quia inter eos fuerat ratum con- 
jugium, quod non potest dissolvi. 


BERNARD OF Pavtia.! 


Si autem ab initio infideles erant, cum matrimonium contraxerunt, 
et unus conversus est, reliqua in infidelitate remanente, refert, 
infidelis consentiat habitare cum fideli vel non. Nam, etsi consentiat, 
potest tamen fidelis eam relinquere, sed non ea vivente aliud 
matrimonium contrahere; similiter et mulier fidelis de viro infideli, ut 
C. 28, q. 1, c. 9, inf. Si vero infidelis non consentiat habitare cum 
fideli, tune licet fideli aliud matrimonium contrahere, ut C. 28, q. 2, ¢. 2. 

@uodsi infidelis, quae prius non consentiebat cohabitare, venit 
ad fidem et virum suum repetit, distinguendum puto, an vir prius- 
quam ipsa converteretur, aliam accepit uxorem, in quo casu non el 
redderetur, sed cum secunda maneret; si vero prius ipsa conversa 
est, quam iste aliam acciperet, puto ipsum sibi esse reddendum ; 
cessante enim causa dissidii debuit cessare dissidium. Et videtur 
tam doctori meo Hugoni, quam mihi, quod cogendus sit eam 
recipere, licet in C. 28, q. 2, ο. 2, dicatur, quod contumelia Creatoris 
solvit jus matrimonii erga eum, qui relinquitur, unde videtur, quod 
statim ab ea fit liber, sed intelligendum est, quod solvit ipsa in 
infidelitate remanente. Quaeritur autem si ante alam accepit, quam 
ista converteretur, an liceat isti cum alio post conversionem matvri- 
monium contrahere; et quod videtur ex illo verbo praedicto scil. 
quod ait: erga eum qui relinquitur.: ex hoc, inquam, verbo colligi 
videtur, quod erga eum non sit solutum. Sed melius est dicere jus 
matrimonii erga utrumque solutum esse; non enim illa est uxor sine 
viro, et propterea credo, sibi licere matrimonium contrahere ; ideo 
autem non dixit: erga utrumque, quia de infideli judicare non debuit. 
Non est autem praedicta regula servanda in his, qui fideles conjuncti 
sunt et postea unus apostatur nec consentit habitare cum fideli; cum 
enim matrimonium initiatum, consummatum et ratum fuerit inter 
eos, apparet quod nulla causa interveniente potest aliam ducere. 


Ropert or Mabmspury.? 


Inter infideles autem est matrimonium, sed non ratum. Unde, 51 
tu conversus es, et illa non vult converti, sed tamen commanere, non 





1 Laspeyres, Bernardi Papiensis Faventini episcopi summa decretalium, p. 291 
sq. quoted by Freisen, 817. 
Schulte, Roberti Malmesburiensis summa de matrimonio et usuris, Ὁ. 17, 
quoted by Freisen, 820. 


536 HOLY MATRIMONY 


potes, ea sic vivente, aliam ducere. Si autem cedit in odium 
Christianitatis, ducas aliam, si vis, et ideo non est ratum matrimonium 
infidelium. Hoc autem intelligendum est de illis, qui contraxerant 
in infidelitate ; quia si fideles contraxerant et alter apostatat et tamen 
non vult manere nisi blasphemans vel forte discedere vult, non 
potest remanens fidelis cum alia contrahere vivente prima, quia 
ratum fuit matrimonium. In solis Judaeis aliter est, quia quidquid 
sit, neuter reliquum potest retinere, nisi ambo convertantur. Solutum 
est ergo matrimonium, licet quidam dicant quod non, et male, ut 
videtur, quia sic cogeretur quis invitus continere, 


TANCRED. ! 


Si vero conjuges sunt infideles, puta Judaei vel Sarraceni, et alter 
convertatur ad fidem, alter remanet in Judaismo, vel in gentilitatis 
errore, si infidelis non vult cohabitare fideli, vel si vult cohabitare, 
non tamen sine injuria et blasphemia nominis Christi, vel, ut eum 
retrahat ad infidelitatem vel ad aliud mortale peccatum, in istis tribus 
casibus contumelia Creatoris solvit jus matrimonii erga fidelem et 
potest fidelis licite contrahere. 


Innocent III. 


Decretales Gregorit ix. lib. iv. 195. De Divortiis, cap. 7. Quanto. 


Nos igitur consultationi tuae de communi fratrum nostrorum 
consilio respondentes, distinguimus, licet quidam praedecessor noster 
sensisse aliter videatur, an ex duobus infidelibus alter ad fidem 
catholicam convertatur, vel ex duobus fidelibus alter labatur in 
haeresim, vel decidat in gentilitatis errorem. Si enim alter infidelium 
conjugum ad fidem catholicam convertatur, altero vel nullo modo, vel 
saltem non sine blasphemia divini nominis, vel ut eum pertrahat ad 
mortale peccatum, ei cohabitare volente: qui relinquitur, ad secunda, 
si voluerit, vota transibit. Et in hoe casu intelligimus quod ait 
apostolus: “Si infidelis discedit, discedat. Frater enim vel soror 
non est servituti subjectus in hujusmodi,” et canonem etiam, in quo 
dicitur, quod ‘“contumelia creatoris solvit jus matrimonii circa eum 
qui relinquitur.” Si vero alter fidelium conjugum vel labatur in 
haeresim, vel transeat ad gentilitatis errorem, non credimus, quod in 
hoe casu is, qui relinquitur, vivente altero possit ad secundas nuptias 
convolare, licet in hoe casu major appareat contumelia creatoris. 


* Wunderlich, Tancredi summa de matrimonio, p. 49, quoted by Freisen, 822. 





ee 


‘ 
ἃ 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES yon 


Nam etsi matrimonium verum quidem inter infideles exsistat, non 
tamen est ratum. Inter fideles autem verum quidem et ratum 
exsistit, quia sacramentum fidei, quod semel est admissum, nunquam 
admittitur ; sed ratum efficit conjugii sacramentum, ut ipsum in 
conjungibus illo durante perduret. Nec obstat, quod a quibusdam 
forsan objicitur, quod fidelis relictus non debeat jure suo sine culpa 
privari, quum in multis casibus hoc contingat, ut si alter conjugum 
incidatur. Per hane autem responsionem quorundam malitiae 
obviatur, qui in odium conjugum, vel quando sibi invicem displi- 
cerent, si eas possent in tali casu dimittere, simularent haeresim, 
ut ab ipsa nubentibus conjugibus resilirent. Per hance ipsam 
responsionem illa solvitur quaestio qua quaeritur, utrum ad eum, 
qui [vel] ab haeresi vel infidelitate revertitur, qui permansit in fide, 


redire cogatur. [Dat. Lat. Kal. Maii. 1199.] 


Cap. 8. Gaudemus. 

Qui autem secundum ritum suum legitimam repudiavit uxorem 
quum tale repudium veritas in evangelio reprobaverit, nunquam ea 
vivente licite poterit aliam etiam ad fidem Christi conversus habere, 
nisi post conversionem ipsius illa renuat cohabitare cum ipso, aut 
etiamsi consentiat, non tamen absque contumelia creatoris vel ut eum 
pertrahat ad mortale peccatum. In quo casu restitutionem petenti, 
quamvis de injusta spoliatione constaret, restitutio negaretur, quia 
secundum Apostolum frater aut soror non est in hujusmodi subjectus 
servituti. Quodsi conversum ad fidem et illa conversa sequetur, 
antequam propter causas praedictas legitimam ille ducat uxorem, eam 
recipere compelletur. 

S. TyHomas AQUINAS. 
Summae tertiae partis suppl. qu. 59, art. ὅ. 

Distinguendum est, quia si infidelis vult cohabitare sine contumelia 
Creatoris, 1d est, sine hoe quod ad infidelitatem indueat, potest fidelis 
libere discedere, sed discedens non potest alteri nubere; si autem 
infidelis non vult cohabitare sine contumelia Creatoris, in verba 
blasphemiae prorumpens, et nomen Christi audire nolens, tune, si 
ad infidelitatem pertrahere nitatur, vir fidelis discedens potest alteri 
per matrimonium copulari. 

Solvitur (matrimonium prius) per matrimonium sequens, ad quod 
pervenire non posset vir fidelis, nisi solutus a servitute uxoris suae 
per culpam ejusdem. 


¢ . 


538 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod matrimonium infidelium imper- 
fectum est . . . ; sed matrimonium fidelium est perfectum, et ita est 
firmius. Semper autem firmius vinculum solvit minus firmum, si sit 
el contrarium ; et ideo matrimonium quod post in fide contrahitur, 
solvit matrimonium quod prius in infidelitate contractum fuerat. 
Unde matrimonium infidelium non est omnino firmum et ratum, sed 
ratificatur postmodum per fidem Christi. 


S. BoNAVENTURE. 

Commentaries on the Sentences. On book iv. dist. 39, art. 2, qu. 1.1 

Concedo igitur quod solutionem matrimonii contracti in infidelitate 
faciunt: primuin est ipsius imbecillitas, secundum est cultus dis- 
paritas, tertium Creatoris vel matrimonii injuria. Primum reddit 
possibile ad solutionem, secundum disponit, tertium dissolvit. Matri- 
monii imbecillitas est ratione signationis imperfectae, quam habet 
apud infideles et ratione defectus baptismi. Unde dicitur quod illud 
matrimonium est legitimum sed non ratum, quia, ut dicit Innocen- 
tius, sacramentum fidei, id est, baptismi, quod semel admissum est, 
ratum efficit sacramentum conjugu, ex parte scilicet suscipientis est 
intelligendum. 


Pauu III. 
Constitution Altitudo. 
Venerabilibus fratribus universis Episcopis Occidentalis et meridionalis 
Indiae Salutem et Apostolicam Benedictionem.? 

Super eorum vero matrimonium hoc observandum decernimus, ut 
qui anti conversionem plures juxta eorum mores habebant uxores, et 
non recordantur, quam primo acceperint, conversi ad Fidem, unam 
ex illis accipiant, quam voluerint, et cum ea Matrimonium contrahant 
per verba de praesenti, ut moris est; qui vero recordantur, quam 
primo acceperint, aliis dimissis, eam retineant. 


Pius V. 
Constitution Romani Pontificis, 2 Aug. 1571, a.p.? 


Cum itaque sicut accepimus Indis in sua infidelitate manentibus 
plures permittantur uxores, quas ipsi etiam levissimis de causis 
repudiant, hine factum est quod recipientibus Baptismum__per- 





1 Opera Omnia, Rome, 1596, tom. vi. p. 500. 
Bullarium sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide, App. i. p. 25. 
Bullarium pontificium s. cong. de prop. fide, App. tom, i. p. 45, Romae, 
1841. ; 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES Hae 


missum sit permanere cum ea uxore quae simul cum marito baptizata 
existit, et quia saepenumero contingit illam non esse primam 
conjugem, unde tam Ministri quam Episcopi gravissimis scrupulis 
torquentur, existimantes illud non esse verum matrimonium, sed 
quia durissimum esset separare eos ab uxoribus cum quibus ipsi Indi 
baptismum susceperunt, maxime quia difficilimum foret primam 
conjugem reperire, ideo nos statui dictorum Indorum paterno affectu 
benigne consulere, ac ipsos Episcopos et Ministros ab hujusmodi 
scrupulis eximere volentes, motu proprio et ex certa scientia nostra 
ac Apostolicae Potestatis plenitudine, ut Indi sic ut praemittitur 
baptizati et in futurum baptizandi cum uxore quae cum ipsis 
baptizata fuerit et baptizabitur remanere habeant tanquam cum 
legitima uxore, aliis dimissis, Afostolica auctoritate tenore prae- 
sentium declaramus, matrimoniumque hujusmodi inter eos legitime 
consistere, 
Grecory XIII. 
Constitution Populis ae Nattonibus, 25 Jan, 1585.1 


Populis ac Nationibus nuper ex gentilitatis errore δ fidem 
Catholicam conversis expedit indulgere circa libertatem contrahendi 
matrimonia, ne homines continentiae servandae minime_ assueti 
propterea minus libenter in fide persistant et alios illorum exemplo 
ab ejus perceptione deterreant; quoniam igitur saepe contingit 
multos utriusque sed praecipue virilis sexus infideles post contracta 
gentili ritu matrimonia ex Ancola, Ethiopia, Brasilia, et aliis Indicis 
Regionibus ab hostibus captos a Patriis finibus et propriis conjugibus 
in remotissimas Regiones exterminari, adeo ut tam ipsi, captivique 
qui in Patria remanent, si postea ad fidem convertantur, conjuges 
infideles tam longo locorum intervallo disjunctos, non sine contumelia 
Creatoris secum cohabitare velint monere, ut par est, nequeant, vel 
quia interdum ad hostiles et barbaras Provincias ne Nuntiis quidem 
accessus pateat, vel quia ignorent prorsus in quas Regiones fuerint 
transvecti, vel quia ipsa itineris longitudo magnam afferat difficultatem. 
Idcirco Nos attendentes hujusmodi connubia inter infideles contracta 
vera quidem, non tamen adeo rata censeri, ut necessitate suadente 
dissolvi non possint, talium gentium infirmitatem paterna pietate 
miserati, universis et singulis dictorum locorum ordinariis et Parochis 
et Presbyteris Societatis Jesu ad Confessiones audiendas ab ejusdem 
Societatis Superioribus approbatis, et ad dictas Regiones pro tempore 
missis, vel in illis admissis, plenam Auctoritate Apostolica tenore 





Bullarium sac. cong. de prop. fide, App. i. p. 103, Romae, 1841. 


540 HOLY MATRIMONY 


praesentium concedimus facultatem dispensandi cum quibuscumque 
utriusque sexus Christifidelibus incols dictarum Regionum, et serius 
ad fidem conversis, qui ante baptisma susceptum matrimonium 
centraxerant, ut eorum quilibet, superstite conjuge infideli, et ejus 
consensu minime requisito, aut responso non expectato, matrimonia 
cum quovis fideli, alterius etiam ritus contrahere, et in facie Ecclesiae 
solemnizare, et in eis postea carnali copula consummatis, quoad 
vixerint remanere licite valeant, dummodo constet et summarie et 
extrajudicialiter conjugem ut praefertur absentem moneri legitime 
non posse, aut monitum intra tempus in eadem monitione praefixum 
suam voluntatem non significasse. uae quidem matrimonia, etiamsi 
postea innotuerit conjuges priores Infideles suam voluntatem juste 
impeditos declarare non potuisse, et ad fidem etiam tempore contracti 
secundi matrimonii conversos fuisse, nihilominus rescindi nunquam 
debere, sed valida et firma prolemque inde suscipiendam legitimam 


fore decernimus. 
Concitium LIMANUM. 


A Sixto V. probatum.?! 


Si infidelis spem suae conversionis ostendat, christianus nullo 
modo ad alias nuptias transeat, quemadmodum sacris canonibus est 
definitum ; sed conjugis lucrum in Christo expectet; si vero differat 
conversionem suam, neque tamen baptizatae conjugi perniciosus 
existat, avertendo a fide, aut ad peccatum mortale pertrahendo 
(caeterum cum id fit, sacri canones eos necessario separandos esse 
volunt, et christiano novi conjugi potestatem tribuunt) tune et 
expectandum adhuc per semestre tempus, et assidue interim de sua 
conversione admonendum. Transacto sex mensium spatio, res ad 
episcopum deferatur, qui perspecta bene causa infidelis, declarat 
fideli copiam esse aliud matrimonium ineundi, propter fidei aut 
charitatis scandalum quod patitur; quod si nullum esse periculum 
in cohabitatione viderit, jubeat expectare infidelem, aut etiam 
consulat, si prodesse intelligat. 


Sacra CONGREGATIO CONCILIL 
Die 23 Jan. an. 1603.? 
Sacra congregatio censuit ita respondendum, minime posse prae- 


dictos ad veram fidem conversos accipere alias fideles uxores, nisi 
prius constiterit utrum primae voluerint cum eis permanere vel 





1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 324. 
2 Lib. x. Decret. p. 55, quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, ii. 313. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 541 


non. Quod si noluerint cohabitare, vel si voluerint, non tamen 
absque contumelia Creatoris, vel ut conversos ad mortale peccatum 
pertrahant, tune posse alias fideles accipere uxores. Si cohabitare 
absque Creatoris contumelia velint, et absque eo quod conversos 
ad mortale peccatum pertrahant, quamvis veram agnoscere fidem 
noluerint, non posse conversos alias fideles accipere uxores. Non 
sufficere ea, quae proponuntur, nempe loci distantiam, difficultatem, 
ac praesumptionem, cum constare debeat de voluntate ipsarum 


uxorum infidelium. 
CLEMENT IX, 


To the Bishop of Heliopolis, a.p. 1669 (23 Jan). 

Dispensandi super impedimento disparitatis cultus, gravibus 
tamen ex causis in quibus dispensandum erit, et in locis tantum 
ubi sunt plures infideles quam christiani, ita ut in eo matrimonio 
postmodum, quatenus absque Creatoris contumelia ΠΟΘΙ] possit, con- 
trahentes remanere libere et lcite valeant, prolesque exinde sus- 
cipiendas legitimas decernendi, super quibus eorumdem vicariorum 
apostolicorum conscientia oneratur, et praedictae dispensationes 
gratis concedantur. 

Benepict XIV.” 

Certum est infidelium conjugium, ex privilegio in Fidei favyorem 
a Christo Domino concesso, et per Apostolum Paulum 1 Cor. vii. 
promulgato, dissolvi, cum conjugum alter Christianam Fidem amplec- 
titur, renuente altero, in sua infidelitate obdurato, cohabitare cum 
converso, aut cohabitare quidem volente, sed non sine contumelia 
Creatoris, hoe est, non sine periculo subversionis conjugis fidelis, 
vel non sine exsecratione sanctissim1 nominis Christi, et christianae 
religionis despicientia. Ex hoc vero fit integrum non esse conjugi 
converso transire ad alia vota, priusquam infidelis interpellatus, aut 
absolute recusaverit cum eo cohabitare, aut animum sibi esse 
ostenderit cum illo quidem cohabitandi, sed non sine Creatoris 
contumelia. 


At quandoque. evenit, conjugem infidelem in longinquas abiisse 
regiones, aut ita latitare, ut interpellari nequeat, et tunc dubitatur, 
an, interpellatione omissa, fas sit converso alias inire nuptias. 


1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 334, as ‘* Ex organo congreg. 
de prop. fide.” 
* De Synodo Lioecesana, lib. i. c. 4, ἡ 8, Moguntiae, 1840, tom. i p. 420. 


542 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Nos ipsi, ad Petri Cathedram evecti, facultatem concessimus 
Apostolico Nuntio, Venetiis commoranti, ut in simili rerum eventu 
possit ab ejusdem interpellationis onere relevare conjuges conversos, 
existentes in loco pio Catechumenorum ejusdem civitatis Vene- 
tiarum: quod habetur in Constit. 3 nostri Bullarii, tom. 1. 


CONFERENCES D’ ANGERS, 
Sur Le Mariage, p. 333. 
(Arguments in the case of Borach Levi.) 


On convint que les Canonistes et les Theologiens, depuis plusieurs 
siécles, avaient entendu ce texte celebre d’une dissolution réelle du 
mariage; mais l uniformité de leurs sentiments ne parait d’aucune 
consideration; elle n’est pas capable dintroduire une exception, 
quelque plausible qu’elle puisse @tre, ἃ une indissolubilité fondée 
sur le Droit divin méme. On prétendit que sans autre examen, 
ils s’en étaient tenus a une Decrétale d’Innocent III.; que ce Pape 
avait été luicméme trompé par Gratien; que ce compilateur avait 
sans discernement copié une interpretation de S. Paul, qwil avait 
cru trouver dans les ouvrages de S. Gregoire le Grand; que cette 
autorité lui en avait imposé; que S. Gregoire n’ a rien enseigné de 
semblable; que ce que cite Gratien, est ἃ la verité tiré d’un com- 
mentaire de S. Paul, autrefois attribué a S. Ambroise; que depuis 
on avait reconnu qu’ il n’ était pas du saint docteur; et qu’ en 
passant par tous ces dégrés, lautorité d’Innocent III. avait ainsi 
entrainé toute Pécole. On en conclut que quelque unanime qu’ on 
supposat le sentiment des Scholastiques, avec des appuis si fragiles, 
il ne pouvait Il’ emporter sur des preuves du sentiment contraire, 
qui sont d’ une toute autre force, et auxquelles on ne peut faire 
les mémes reproches. 


SacRA CONGREGATIO SANoTI OFFICII. 
Casus insequens ex coccinenst missione an. 1759, die 1 Aug., sub 
Clemente XIII,+ 

Saepe contingit ut ex duobus infidelibus alter convertatur ad 
fidem, alter converti quidem nolit, consentiat tamen cohabitare cum 
fideli sine contumelia Creatoris. . . . Quare fidelis infidelem non 
dimittit, sed cohabitare pergunt ut conjuges, idque ad aliquos etiam 
annos: at postea infidelis mutata voluntate, non solum converti non 
vult, sed tentat fidelem, vel discedit, imo ad alias nuptias transit. 


1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom, ii. p. 322, 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 543 


Quaeritur 1: An in hoe casu possit etiam fidelis derelictus dis- 
cedere, et ad alias nuptias transire ? 

Resp. ad 1: In casu de quo agitur, affirmative. 

Quaeritur 2: An hoc privilegium solum locum habeat, quando 
infidelis discedit odio fidei; an etiam quando discedit propter dis- 
cordias, vel aliam causam a fide diversam ? 

Resp. ad 2: Cum militet ex parte conjugis conversi favor fidei, 
eo potest uti, quacumque ex causa, dummodo justa sit, nimirum 
non dederit justum ac rationabile motivum alteri conjugi discedendi, 

Quaeritur 3: Num possit fidelis transire ad alias nuptias, quando 
infidelis quacumque de causa ab eo discegsit, nec sciri possit, vivat 
adhuc necne ? 

Resp. ad 3: Remittendam esse interpellationem, qua intimetur 
conjugi infideli, an velit converti, a qua interpellatione apostolica 
sedes, justis de causis, dispensat. 

Quaeritur 4: An fidelis, qui ex dispensatione valide contraxit 
matrimonium cum infideli transire possit ad alias nuptias, si infidelis 
discedat, vel cohabitare nolit, vel eam pertrahat ad mortale peccatum ? 

Resp. ad 4: Si fidelis, praevia dispensatione, contraxit matri- 
monium cum infideli, censetur illud contraxisse com explicita 
conditione: dummodo nimirum infidelis secum cohabitare velit 
absque contumelia Creatoris: quare si infidelis non servet supra- 
dictam conditionem, adhibenda sunt juris remedia, ad hoc, ut eam 
servet; alias separari debent quoad torum et cohabitationem, non 
tamen quoad vinculum; quocirca in casu de quo agitur, conjuge 
infideli superstite, non poterit ad alia vota ὑγ8 5116. 

Quaeritur 5: An aliquo et quanto tempore possit fidelis post 
conversionem cohabitare cum infideli, quin privetur  potestate 
transeundi ad alias nuptias ? 

Resp. ad 5: Conversus ad fidem, in ipso conversionis momento 
non intelligitur solutus a vinculo matrimonil cum infideli adhue 
superstite contracti, sed tunc acquirit solummodo jus transeundi ad 
alias nuptias cum conjuge tamen fideli, idque si conjux infidelis 
renuat post interpellationem converti. Ceterum tune solum conjugii 
vinculum dissolvitur, quando conjux conversus transit cum effectu 
ad alias nuptias. Si gentilis conversus ante susceptionem baptismi 
habebit plures uxores, et prima recuset amplecti fidem, tunc legitime 
potest quamlibet ex illis retinere, dummodo fidelis fiat. Sed in hoe 
easu contrahentes mutuum consensum coram parocho et testibus 
renovare debent. 


5A4 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Synopus SUTCHUENSIS, A.D. 1803. 


(Acta probata a 8. cong. de prop. fide.)} 


Noverint missionarii, quibus concessa est facultas dispensandi ab 
interpellatione, ea non uti nisi ad normam Brevis Gregorii XIIL ; 
scilicet, ut non dispensetur, nisi quando fidelis conjugem infidelem 
absentem, an sine contumelia Creatoris secum habitare velit, ut par 
est, monere nequit, vel quia interdum ad hostiles et barbaras pro- 
vincias he nunciis quidem accessus pateat ; vel quia prorsus ignoretur 
in quas regiones fuerit transactus ; vel quia itineris longitudo magnam 
affert difficultatem ; et praeterea rarissime et in casu urgentis neces- 
sitatis. Extra hos casus omnino fieri debet interpellatio, etiamsi 
inutiis aut periculosa videatur, si fidelis velit ad alias nuptias 
transire; nec ab ea dispensari potest sive timeatur, ne infidelis 
interpellatus, sicut prima vice uxorem vendidit eamdem recuperatam 
iterum vendat; sive praesumatur cum fundamento, vel ex dis- 
sensionibus conjugum in praecedenti cohabitatione, vel ex alia quavis 
circumstantia, partem infidelem nolle redire. Quod si periculum 
adsit, ne facta interpellatione, exinde oriatur molestia seu persecutio 
contra christianos, hujusmodi casus deferatur ad vicarium apostoli- 
cum, ut 5. sedes consulatur, prout responsum est in congregatione s. 
officiit an. 1759. De duobus porro dumtaxat fieri debet interpel- 
latio nempe, 1. num pars infidelis velit converti; 2. num saltem 
velit cohabitare absque contumelia Creatoris. 

Advertant idem missionari, fidelem cum quo dispensatur, non 
posse novum matrimonium inire, nisi cum fideli baptizata, minime 
vero catechumena. Praeterea adhuc diligenter observent, quod in 
unoquoque illorum casuum in quibus necessarium judicabunt dis- 
pensare ab interpellatione, non sufficiat, ut omnino sint persuasi de 
impossibilitate, aut difficultate illam exequendi, sed oportebit, ut 
faciant processum summarium et scriptum, quo pro omni tempore 
futuro appareat, vel ex eo, quod interpellatus non respondet, aut 
quia ignoratur ubi sit; aut quia dedit argumentum reipsa aperti sui 
dissensus ; aut quid tandem in tanta est distantia, ut interpellatio ad 
illum pervenire nequeat, aut saltem res est multum difficilis; iste 
enim praevius processus summarius nascitur ex litteris ét spiritu 
Brevis gregoriani. Quamvis in folio facultatum, quae missionarlis 
conceduntur, sequens facultas legatur ; 

Dispensandi cum gentilibus et infidelibus plures uxores habentibus, 





1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. 11, p. 318. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 545 


ut post conversionem et baptismum, quam ex illis maluerint, st 

etiam illa fidelis fiat, retinere possint, nist prima voluerit convertt ; 
nihilominus eorum conscientia oneratur, qui uti non debent tali 
facultate, nisi ad normam supradicti Brevis gregoriani, scilicet, ut 
non dispensetur ab interpellatione primae uxoris, nisi in casibus in 
Brevi expressis: sufficit autem, ut interpelletur, si velit converti. 


SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE PRropaGaNnpDa, A.D. 1816 (5 Mch.). 
Pro vicariatu apostolico Tunchini occidentalis. ! 


1. Dubium excitatum est: utrum ad effectum matrimonii dissol- 
vendi juxta privilegium in favorem fidei a Christo Domino concessum, 
et ab Apostolo promulgatum, interpellatio partis in infidelitate per- 
manentis sit de jure divino, atque adeo necessaria, ut ea neglecta, 
nullus plane habeatur matrimonii dissolvendi locus? An solum 
pertineat ad formam judicialem, nec requiratur, nisi ut dissolutio 
licite fiat, praesertim cum aliunde constet judiciis moraliter certis, 
alterum conjugum nec fidem amplecti nec sine contumelia Creatoris 
velle cohabitare ? 

Cui dubio respondit sac. congregatio, non esse locum dissolutioni 
matrimonil in infidelitate contracti, in casu de quo agitur, nisi inter- 
pellatione praemissa, aut nisi obtenta legitimis ex causis, super 
interpellatione apostolica dispensatione. 


2. Num sola de religione amplectenda sufficiat interrogatio: wtrwm 
scilicet pars in infidelitate remanens velit convertt necne? (Quod 
Thomae Sanchez auctoritate freti existimant aliqui ex missionarlis 5 
an potius interpellatio: Utrum saltem pars in infidelitate perseverans 
absque Creatoris contumelia cohabitare consentiat, sit quoque essen- 
tialis et absolute requisita, ita ut illa praetermissa, non solum non 
licite, sed etiam non valide matrimonium dissolvi queat ? 

Resp. Interpellandum esse conjugem infidelem non solum an 
converti velit, sed etiam casu, quo nolit. converti, an velit cum 
conjuge fideli cohabitare sine contumelia Creatoris juxta disposi- 
tionem Innocentii III. cap. Quanto. De divortivs. 


3. Utrum solemnis uxoris expulsio a marito facta, videlicet dando 
libellum repudii coram pagi primoribus juxta leges regni, possit 
interpellationis locum tenere, et pro ea reputari, cum certissime con- 
stet de istius mariti voluntate, illum nempe praefatam mulierem 
nullo modo in posterum uxorem velle habere? An potius, nulla 





1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 324. 
2N 


546 HOLY MATRIMONY 


repudii habita ratione, in iis etiam circumstantiis duplex in jure 
praescripta ad validitatem matrimonii requiratur interpellatio ? 

Resp. Faciendam esse interpellationem, etiam in casu de quo 
agitur, si fieri potest: aut recurrendum esse ad sedem apostolicam 
pro obtinenda dispensatione. 


4. @uomodo se gerere debeat missionarius erga mulierem infidelem, 
absque ulla adulterii causa a suo marito etiam infideli repudiatam, 
qui aliam duxit, cum illa postulat baptizari, et est suspicio, an sit 
animo parata ad revertendum ad suum maritum, si forte postea 
revocet, et sine contumelia Creatoris cohabitare consentiat ? Debetne 
illam de hac re prius interrogare, atque interea baptismum deferre, 
donec melius sit disposita, etiam cum periculo moriendi absque 
baptismate? Quid autem si consentiat, sed dumtaxat cum hac 
conditione, quando nimirum expulsa fuerit concubina % 

Resp. Nihil obstare quominus mulieri, de qua in casu modo 
aliunde sit sufficienter instructa, baptisma conferatur. 


5. Cum adulterium causam praebeat conjugibus infidelibus, sicut 
et christianis, divortium perpetuum celebrandi, ita ut parti Innocenti 
omnino sit integrum, cum sacro fonte abluta fuerit, aut seculo nuncium 
remittere, aut in statu viduitatis vitam transigere, licet pars altera 
reconciliari velit, et sine contumelia Creatoris cohabitare ? 

Resp. Conjugem ad fidem conversam et baptizatam posse facere 
divortium, quoad torum, a conjuge infideli ob adulterium ab eo com- 
missum, quamvis iste veniam petat, et velit’cohabitare sine contumelia 
Creatoris. 

Brnepiot XIV. 
Singulart nobis (1749 a.p.). 

Canones a Gratiano collecti in causa 28 q. 1, revera fidelium cum 
infidelibus matrimonia prohibent, non tamen ita, ut eadem faciant 
irrita; Εὖ quamquam facerent, tamen, cum canones illi a conciliis 
provincialibus conditi fuerint, tantam vim obtinere minime possunt, 
ut 115 universalis ecclesia obligetur. 


Omnes consentiunt ob cultus disparitatem irrita matrimonia esse, 
non quidem jure sacrorum canonum, sed generali ecclesiae more, qui 
pluribus adhine saeculis viget ac vim legis obtinet. 


The five centuries which follow Justinian are not in the 
West very fruitful of indications on the subject of the re- 
marriage of converts. Such authorities as there are seem to 


| 





REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 547 


divide themselves into three main currents; viz., (1) the practice 
of the Church of Spain, (2) the teaching of Central Europe, and 
(3) the Eastern teaching of Theodore, introduced into England 
by the Penitential of the great Archbishop. 

(1) The practice of the Church of Spain may first be Spain, 
noticed. In 633 a.p. was held the 4th Council of Toledo, the 
7o Canons of which are subscribed by 69 bishops or bishops’ 
representatives. The 63rd of these Canons lays down that a 
converted Jewess must leave her Jewish husband unless he too 
consents to become a Christian, a decision which appears to be 
in direct contradiction to the instruction of S. Paul.! It is, in 
fact, the extreme point reached by the swing of the pendulum 
in one direction, as the rigorism of the Church of 8. Augustine 
is the extreme point reached in the other direction. In each 
case the explanation is to be sought in the historical environ- 
ment. ὃ. Augustine and the Church of his day, at least in 
Africa, had to control the laxity of the catechumen who would 
not be baptized; and therefore, as it would seem, decided that 
even one baptized might not remarry during the lifetime of 
the partner of his pre-Christian days. The churches of the 
Visigothic kingdoms of Spain were facing in an entirely 
different direction. They were not concerned with controlling 
the catechumen, nor on the other hand do they seem to have 
been much affected by concern for the converted wife, whose 
faith might be in danger if she clung to the husband of her 
youth. Rather must it be said that the churches of Spain 
had already set out upon that lurid career of repression, which 
found a virtue in making the life of an unbeliever in nothing 
worth the living till he should find his way into the Christian 
fold. A perusal of the Canons of the various Councils of 
Toledo will make this sufficiently clear. We are in the 
presence of a Church which begins to be conscious of a giant’s 
strength, and has no thought above the using of it as a giant. 
It may be that the endangered Christian wife had her share in 
the forethought of the Spanish bishops, but it is the malignant 
Jewish husband who is rather the object of their efforts, and 
who must be hounded for his soul’s sake by every inducement 


1 Mansi, tom. x. p. 634. 
2N 2 


548 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of natural affection to forsake the error of his ways. “Jews 
who have Christian women in marriage are to be admonished 
by the bishop of that ewvitas that if they desire to abide with 
them they must become Christians. But if on admonition 
they decline, they are to be separated (from their wives); 
because an unbeliever cannot remain in the wedlock of her 
who has now been translated into the Christian faith.” 

- It is not stated whether the woman so separated would be 
held free to marry again; but this appears to follow. Marriage 
with a Jew was a simple horror; in no case might it be suffered 
to abide. A theology which thus ruthlessly severed the prior 
bond would hardly lay stress upon its indissoluble character. 
In this connexion may be noticed a decision of the 17th 
Council of Toledo, which was held in 694 A.D. or 61 years 
after the Council just noticed. It does not directly bear upon 
our subject, but is of great interest as shewing the unflinching 
character of the repressive spirit. At seven years of age boys 
and girls alike were to be torn from their Jewish parents and 
given over to be brought up by “very faithful Christians.”} 
These “very faithful Christians” were in the bringing up to 
contrive to marry the young men to Christian women, 1.6., 
women of Christian families, and the young women similarly 
to Christian men. 

It seems probable that the principle of the unlawfulness 
of any union between believers and unbelievers, however 
sanctioned by the past, continued to be the guiding principle 
of the Spanish Church in this matter for many centuries, 
There is, so far as appears, no indication of a change of front, 
till the general adoption of the Decretum of Gratian practically 
brought all Western Christendom under the same system of 
Canon Law. As late indeed as the Council of Tarragona in 
1239 A.D., or more than six centuries after the 4th Council 
of Toledo, we come across an enactment hardly different in 
spirit from the Canon of that Council, though now the Spanish 
Church is confronted not only with the Jew but with the 
Musalman. Jews and “Saracens” are to be distinguished 
from Christians by their attire, and they are not to retain 


1 Mansi, tom. xii. p. 102, 


Ges (ὡς 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 549 


Christian women in their households. Any Christian women» 


remaining in such households after the prohibition so given 
are to be debarred from Christian sepulture. No mention is 
here made of wives, but neither is any exception made in their 
favour.} 

The Spanish Church thus appears to have simply declined to 
recognise that the state of marriage was possible as between 
a believer and an unbeliever in any case or under any 
circumstances. 

(2) In Italy and Germany the view of 8. Augustine as to 
the indissolubility of marriage contracted before baptism 
seems to have been followed without much controversy. 
Gratian refers to the “concilium Meldense,” as having laid 
down that a marriage contracted before baptism could not 
be dissolved. “If any person has had a virgin to wife before 
his baptism, so long as she lives he may not have another after 
his baptism. For offences, not marriages, are done away in 
baptism.” The Council of Meaux, held in a.p. 845, has however 
no such Canon, and Gratian has probably taken his quotation 
with slight alterations from the records of the Council of 
Tribur, or else from other records not now known. In the 
records of the Council of Tribur a Canon, nearly the same as 


that quoted by Gratian, is given as being the pronouncement of 


one of the Roman Synods. “The Roman Synod says that a 
wife who was held before baptism is not to be divorced after 
baptism. In baptism offences, but not legitimate marriages, 
are done away.”? The Council of Tribur itself was clearly of 
the same opinion. It was held at the village of Tribur, near 
Maintz, in A.D. 895, and consisted of 22 German bishops. The 
Canon of this Council in which the quotation referred to 
occurs 1s concerned with the abuse which appears to have 
arisen in the cases of persons married in one state of Christian 
Europe, and afterwards, when residing in another state, 
claiming to be free from the first tie on the ground of the 
diversity of the local laws. The Council, in forbidding all 
divorces on such grounds, bases on the recognised prohibition 





1 Mansi, tom. xxiii. p. 513. 
2 Hartzheim, Concilia Germaniae, tom, ii. p. 403. 


Italy and 
Germany. 


England 


550 HOLY MATRIMONY 


of divorce even in the case of converts. “For when one in 
baptism migrates from one life to another (de vita in vitam), 
and yet does not change his lawful wife, how may he change 
her who does not change his life, but merely passes over from 
one people to another?” It need hardly be said that thus to 
base upon the indissolubility of pre-Christian marriage is as 
certain an indication of the acceptance of the principle as any 
independent decision could possibly be. 

(3) In England the provisions of the Penitential of Theo- 
dore were based on lines which were neither those of the 
Spanish Church nor those of the Churches of Central Europe. 
They are, as has been already noticed, a heritage from the 
East. On the present question the Penitential rules: “If any 
man shall, while a Gentile (non-Christian), have divorced a 
Gentile wife, it shall be competent to them (husband and 
wife), after their baptism, either to hold or not to hold her.” 
“Similarly, if one of these shall be baptized, the other remain- 
ing a Gentile, just as the Apostle said, ‘If the unbelieving 
depart, let him depart,’ so whosoever’s wife is an unbeliever 
and a Gentile, and cannot be converted, let her be divorced.”? 
These two rulings occur together, the 18th following imme- 
diately upon the 17th, and being connected with it by 
erammatical construction (eis, eorwm). It will be seen, there- 
fore, that it is no easy matter to determine with any exactness 
the scope of cap. 18. Cap. 17 appears to refer only to those 
husbands and wives who, having effected a divorce before 
baptism, might, upon baptism, exercise their judgment as to 
renewing their connexion as Christian marriage. It appears 
to be contemplated that they would be baptized at the same 
time, and that either husband or wife might then elect not to 
renew the union. When, however, we come to cap. 18, which 
goes on to speak of ¢hem in a construction which can only 
refer to c. 17, are we to understand that the Penitential is 
still treating of persons who had been divorced before the 
baptism of one of them, or to all cases of the conversion of 
one partner in a marriage? In the first case it will mean that 
persons who are already divorced before baptism, and whose 


1 Haddan and Stubbs, v. 111, p. 200. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 501 


partners have not followed them into Christianity, ought not, 
upon their baptism, to go back upon the divorce. In the 
second case it will have the full unbendingness of the Spanish 
practice, “Be converted or divorced.” If this teaching be 
compared with the teaching and usage of the East, it will 
be remembered that while the Council in TJrullo (A.D. 692) 
permitted the married convert to continue his union with the 
unbelieving partner, the practice of the Church admitted the 
unbelief of the partner to be itself a sufficient ground of 
divorce if the Christian partner cared to claim it. 

Besides the three lines of teaching and practice here indi- Hinemar, 
cated, we may notice the utterances of Hincmar, Archbishop 
of Rheims (A.D. 806-882). He quotes 5S. Paul’s concession as 
permitting separation of life, but it does not clearly appear 
whether he considers remarriage to be open to the believing 
partner. As, however, he holds that “that ought not to be 
accounted marriage which is effected outside the decree of 
Gop,” by which he intends the marriages of non-Christians, 
it seems to follow that he would admit the remarriage of a 
convert. 1 

The most fruitful of all periods of Christian history in The period 
attempts to probe and settle the questions surrounding the pe 
conversion of married persons 1s what may be termed, by 
excellence, the period of the Canonists, which finds its central 
point in the Decretum of Gratian. First in this period may 
be noticed Hugo of S. Victor (theologian, not Canonist, who 
died A.D. 1141); next comes Gratian himself, whose celebrated 
Decretum was published before a.D. 1150; and then follow 
in rapid succession Roland, professor at Bologna, and after- 
wards Pope Alexander III. (pope a.p. 1159-1181); Peter 
Lombard, the renowned Master of the Sentences, but rather 
theologian than Canonist, who taught in Paris, and was after- 
wards bishop of that city (bp. A.D. 1159-1164); Bernard of 
Pavia (c. A.D. 1177); Tancred (c. A.D. 1210); Robert of Malms- 
bury, an Englishman and canon of S. Victor at Paris (0. 
A.D. 1207). It is to this succession of great teachers, chiefly 


1 Hinemar, De Divortio Lotharti et Tetberge, int. 21, (Migne’s Ed, tom, i. 
Ῥ. 732.) 


Hugo of 
S. Victor. 


552 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canonists, that the existing law and practice of Western 
Christendom as to the divorce and remarriage of converts is 
really due. 

The celebrated Hugo of 8. Victor, who taught in the theo- 
logical school of Paris, has been rightly described as a precursor 
of Scholasticism; but he was also the immediate precursor in 
point of time of the Canonists, and did not fail to influence 
them in many directions. He was teaching at Paris from A.D. 
1133 till his death in A.p. 1141, whereas the Decretum of 
Gratian is ascribed to some date between A.D. 1139 and 1150. 
Hugo, in his treatise De Sacramentis, has a whole chapter on 
the subject of the marriages of non-Christians. He quotes 
S. Augustine, S. Ainbrose, and §. Gregory. The quotation from 
Ὁ. Gregory! does not appear to be found in the works of the 
great pontiff, and, as will presently be noticed, the quotation 
by Gratian as from 8. Gregory of a passage which seems to 
belong really to Ambrosiaster was a great point in the case of 
the Jansenists of the last century. Hugo quotes with much 
verbal difference, if his quotation be compared with that made 
by Gratian, and either one or both of these writers must have 
quoted with a very free hand. It is clear that Gratian was not 
copying from Hugo, for Gratian not only varies, but is con- 
siderably the fuller; and yet both quote as from 8. Gregory. 
It may be doubted whether they were not both employing 
some source not now known to us. 

Whatever the authorities of Hugo, however, his bold and 
sharply-cut conclusions are his own. Starting from 5. Paul’s 
permission to separate in certain cases, and assuming the truth 
of the statement adduced as from 8. Gregory that “the injury 


of the Creator dissolves the right of marriage,” or, in other 
words, that the marriage of the fallen and unbaptized fails to 
acquire the indissoluble character because of their state of sin 
and alienation, which is the injuria Creatoris ; he arrives at the 


conclusion that there is in no case any obligation to continue 


such a union after the baptism of one of the parties. The 


convert “is not subject to bondage, but is free to do as he will, 


* Hugo de S. Victor, De Sacramentis, lib, ii, par. 2, cap. 11. (Migne, 
Patrologia Latina, tom. elxxvi. p. 506.) 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 553 


only in the Lord; to marry a wife, if he be a man; if a woman, 
to be married. Let him choose what union he will, he is no 
longer bound by the obligations of the prior union, the right of 
which is dissolved on account of the injuria Creatoris, And 
this inguria Creatoris excuses the baptized not only when, being 
dismissed by the unbeliever on Gop’s account, he is united 
without fault to another; but it even excuses him in the case 
where the believer of his own motion, rather choosing Christian 
fellowship, abhors out of Christian devotion the unbelieving 
partner, who is willing indeed to abide with him, but refuses 
to receive the Christian faith. For whether the unbeliever 
depart or choose to remain, he who has been made a believer 
owes nothing to him. No one can make him do otherwise than 
as he will. The injury of the Creator dissolves the right of 
marriage, ” 1 

This bold statement, if it stand in need of modification, is 
the decision of one who, at any rate, went straight to the heart 
of the question. . 

If such marriages could be dissolved in any case, they could 
in no case be indissoluble by their own essential character. He 
does not entertain the idea which was adopted by Gratian, and 
has since been largely followed, that the dissolubility or in- 
dissolubility of such marriages depends on the caprice of the 
unbelieving partner. To Hugo it is clear that if they can be 
dissolved in any case, they are essentially soluble. In laying 
stress on the injuria Creatoris, which he evidently understands 
to be the state of sin in which the unbaptized he, he no less 
erasps the key of the position. His quotation may not be 
capable of verification as from 8. Gregory; but as supplying 
the principle which really underlies the solubility of these 
marriages, it explains much which must otherwise be inexpli- 
cable. It is not, perhaps, much to be wondered at that so strong 
an intelligence as that of Hugo should be a little too summary 
in dealing with the lights and shades of the subject. Having 
grasped the principle that where there is injuria Creatoris 
there is to be recognised the solubility of marriage, he at once 
broadly infers that the convert may do exactly as he likes. 


1 Jd, c. 18. (Migne, p. 508.) 


Injuria 
Creatoris. 


Gratian’s 
Decretum. 


554 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Here he parts company from 8, Paul. The permission to con- 
tinue marriage with the unbeliever who consents to abide is 
not by S. Paul accorded to the mere ecaprice of the converted 
partner. There are in that previous union remains of the 
sacred mystery of the Divine institution, which, though they 
may lack the perfectness which alone can claim entire in- 
dissolubility, are nevertheless not to be torn asunder without 
loss. To meet the difficulty there is offered to the believing 
partner a special grace of sanctification, for the acceptance or 
rejection of which offer he does not fail to be responsible. 

But to Hugo of 8. Victor must be ascribed the credit of 
clearly seeing what the laws of thought do seem to demand, 
viz., (1) that if these marriages are soluble in any case, their 
solubility is in their own essential character; and (2) that the 
principle which thus differentiates them from the marriages of 
the faithful among themselves must be found in the different 
condition of the unbelieving party, who, as in a state fallen and 
unrestored, is stamped with the injuria Creatoris. 

Before leaving Hugo of 8. Victor it is desirable to point out 
that the «juria Creatoris, which is so much to him, is com- 
monly known in later theology as contwmelia Creatoris, and 
that with the change of word there comes a very important 
change of meaning. With Hugo the fallen state of those not 
restored by baptism is itself injury of the Creator. With 
Gratian the unbeliever is not guilty of contumely of the 
Creator unless he in some way throws obstacles in the way of 
the exercise of the Christian religion by the believing partner. 
There is here a most important difference of principle, and 
with it much that was clear to Hugo becomes dim to his 
SUCCESSOLS. 

It is difficult to exaggerate the influence which was acquired 
in the middle ages by the celebrated Decretwm of Gratian. In 
the courts the authorities referred to in the Decretum are 
indeed received according to their own proper weight, and not 
on the authority of the Decretum; nor are the dicta of Gratian 
authoritative. Nevertheless as the recognised codification of 


the Canon Law the Decretum in the middle ages simply swept 


all before it. Able Canonists found it best to teach by means 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 555 


of commentaries upon it, and despite the defects inseparable 
from a work compiled in so uncritical an age it became from 
the first, and has never ceased to be, the great text-book of the 
Canon Law.! 

On the subject of the divorce and remarriage of converts 
Gratian first quotes from a Council which he calls the Council 
of Meaux, but which, as has been noticed, was probably the 
Council of Tribur. The quotation forbids the remarriage of a 
convert after baptism so long as the unbelieving partner was 
living.2 Then, on the other side, Gratian goes on to quote as 
from 8. Gregory. The passage quoted is not found in the 
works of 8. Gregory, but will be found to tally on the whole 
with the passage already noticed from the writer known as 
Ambrosiaster. It is not a very exact quotation, but it is 
similar enough to make it certain that if S. Gregory, or any 
writer later than Ambrosiaster, used the passage as Gratian 
quotes it, such writer must have been indebted to Ambrosiaster. 
The remarkable circumstance has already been noticed that 
several years before Gratian’s compilation Hugo of 5. Victor 
also quoted a passage as from 8. Gregory, and that the passage 
which he quotes resembles Ambrosiaster much more distantly. 
This basing on a passage which is not found in 8. Gregory 
has been the ground of an indictment in later times by the 
Jansenist school of the whole practice of the Church as regards 
the remarriage of converts. That practice, they said, was based 
on the Decretum of Gratian, and the Decretum of Gratian 
based here on a spurious passage purporting to be 8. Gregory’s. 
They argued accordingly that the practice should fall to the 
ground. 

Whatever the influence of the quotation as from 8. Gregory, 
the summing up of Gratian is of the greatest importance in the 
history of the subject. He parts company with Hugo of 
Ὁ. Victor where Hugo of 8. Victor parts company with 8. Paul, 
but in doing so he goes farther than S. Paul. 5. Paul had said 





1 “ As early as the twelfth century, in quoting a passage from Gratian, the 
Popes used to say it was ‘in sacris canonibus,’ or ‘in decretis.’” Janus, The 
Pope and the Council, Eng. Trans. p. 150. 

2 Gratian’s Decretum, Secunda Pars, Causa xxviii. Quaest. 1]. 


Roland. 


556 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that if the unbeliever was willing to abide, the believer should 
not put him or her away. Hugo said that the believer was at 
liberty to do as he liked, the marriage not being indissoluble. 
Gratian, gathering that the believer is not at liberty to do 
altogether what he likes, concludes that the marriage is in- 
dissoluble in the case where the unbelieving partner is willing 
to abide. In the case where the unbelieving partner voluntarily 
brings the union to an end, Gratian concludes that there is no 
indissoluble vineulum. When the unbeliever goes, he leaves the 
believer free to marry again. Consequently Gratian arrives 
in effect at the result that the dissolubility or indissolubility 
of the marriage-bond depends entirely on the caprice of the 
unbelieving partner. 

It is obvious that such a position would not be likely to 
pass unchallenged, and in fact one of Gratian’s great suc- 
eessors, the Cardinal Roland, afterwards Alexander III., de- 
clines to maintain it. According to Roland, in marriage prior 
to baptism the indissoluble vinculum does not exist. Yet it is 
by no means to be allowed, with Hugo of 8. Victor, that the 
believing party may do as he likes as to marrying again. With 
S. Augustine and with Gratian, Roland is of opinion that the 
believing partner may require a separation of life; but if he 
do so, he is none the more free to marry again except in one of 
three specified cases; viz., 


(1) If the unbelieving partner is not willing to abide. 
(2) If he worship idols. 
(3) If he impels to moral crime.? 


This threefold classification of justifying causes is worthy of 
attention, since, while it appears to occur first here, it becomes 
afterwards, with some modifications, one of the commonplaces 
of theology. The two last causes specified, the religious or 
moral perversion to be apprehended from the unbelieving 
husband, are with Gratian no causes at all. With him in these 
cases the unbeliever has not dissolved the union by his own 
action lege fori, and therefore the marriage is not dissolved. 


1 Thaner, Die Summa Magistri Rolandi, 133 sq., quoted by Freisen, Geschichte 
des Canonischen Eherechts, 812. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 7, 


Roland is careful to point out that the indissolubility of 
Christian marriage is not in any way affected by the falling 
away to unbelief of either of the two Christian partners. 
Once married in Christian marriage, no subsequent fault can 
sever the bond. It is only outside of and prior to baptism 
that marriage is essentially soluble. 

Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, takes the same 
line as Gratian. The believer may elect in any case to forbear 
living with the unbeliever, but may only remarry in the one 
case of desertion by the unbeliever. With him, as with 
Gratian, the continuance of the vinculum depends entirely on 
the will of the unbelieving partner.! Bernard of Pavia, like 
Gratian and Peter Lombard, does not appear to find in the 
contumelia Creatoris any ground of severance which would 
justify remarriage if the unbeliever is willing to abide. He 
goes on to consider the case of an unbelieving wife who has 
departed on the conversion of her husband, but who subse- 
quently is converted herself, and then desires to be reunited 
to the husband. Bernard is of opinion that in such a case 
the decision should depend on whether the husband has in the 
meanwhile contracted another marriage or not. If he has, the 
second wife, whom he has married with Christian marriage, is 
his wife, and the first wife has in this case no right to claim 
the husband on the ground of her own subsequent conversion. 
If he has not remarried, Bernard thinks the husband “ought 
to give himself back to her, since when the ground of separa- 
tion is at an end the separation ought to be at an end’? All 
would allow that such a result would be ordinarily a matter 
for congratulation. But it is not clear whether Bernard means 
merely that the reconciliation is eminently desirable, or whether 
he means that the vinculum actually exists till such time as the 
believing partner contracts a second marriage, and that the 
conversion of the unbelieving partner before the believing 
partner has effected a second marriage obliges both to the 





ΟΠ Peter Lombard, Sentences, iv. dist. 39, 7. (Migne, Patrologia Latina, tom. 
excil. p. 936.) 

2 Laspeyres, Bernardi Papiensis Faventini episcopi summa decretalium, p. 291 
sq. (Quoted by Freisen, 818,) 


Peter 
Lombard. 


Bernard 
of Pavia. 


558 HOLY MATRIMONY 


continuance of the vinculum which has never been dissolved. 
This theory, that the vinewlum is first dissolved by the re- 
marriage of the believing partner, became at a much later 
time very prevalent in consequence of the teaching of Cardinal 
Lambertini, afterwards Benedict XIV. Bernard, like Roland, 
teaches that the apostasy of one of the parties to a Christian 
marriage can never supply ground for divorce, inasmuch as 
Christian marriage once effected is essentially indissoluble. 

Robert of § Robert of Malimsbury shews considerable confusion of prin- 

pear ciples. He is clear that ordinarily, if the unbeliever is willing 
to abide, the believer is not free to marry again. In the case 
of Jews, however, this does not hold good, as the marriage is 
not permitted to continue unless both are converted. He is 
evidently endeavouring to reconcile some of the Western, 
more particularly the Spanish, Councils with the ordinary 
teaching of his own day. In any case, if the unbelieving 
partner, though willing to abide, proceeds to hatred of Chris- 
tianity (cedit in odium Christianctatis), the believer is free to 
marry again. 

Tancred. The Canonist Tancred, following Roland, but with modifica- 
tions, formulates three cases in which the converted partner 
may remarry : 

(1) If the unbeliever is not willing to abide. 

(2) If he be willing to abide, but not without injury and 
blasphemy of the name of Christ. 

(3) If he be willing to abide, but not without attempts to 
lead the Christian partner into infidelity or other 
mortal sin, 


In any of these three cases the “contumely of the Creator” 
dissolves the right of marriage.” 

It is undesirable to dwell longer upon this period of the 
Canonist teachers. It is, however, distinctly to them, as has 
been said, that the present law and usage of Western Chris- 
tendom is due. The most authoritative form in which the 
teaching of the Canonists was at length enshrined is to be 

1 Schulte, Roberti Malmesburiensis summa de matrimonio et usuris, p. 17, 


quoted by Freisen, 820. 
2 Wunderlich, Tancredi summa de matrimonio, p. 49. (Freisen, 822.) © 





REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 559 


found in those utterances of Innocent III., which were pre- 
served in the Decretals, and so became an authoritative portion 
of the Corpis Juris Canonict. 

Innocent’s ruling is as follows: “If one of two unbelieving 
consorts be converted to the Catholic faith, but the other be 
not willing to cohabit with him (1) in any case, or (2) without 
blasphemy of the Divine name, or (3) without drawing him on 
to mortal sin, he who is (thus) deserted may pass over to a 
second marriage if he will. And we understand that it is in 
this case that the apostle says, ‘If the unbeliever depart, let 
him depart. A brother or a sister is not bound in such a case’ ; 
and also the canon, in which it is said that ‘the contumely of 
the Creator dissolves the jus matrimoni with regard to him 
who is deserted.’ But if one of two believing consorts either 
fall into heresy, or pass over to the error of Paganism, we do 
not believe that in this case the one who is left can betake 
himself to second wedlock during the lifetime of the other, 
notwithstanding the fact that in this case the contumely of the 
Creator seems to be greater. Jor although there is indeed 
true marriage among unbelievers, yet it is not ratum. But 
among the faithful it exists as both true and ratwm, because 
a sacrament of the faith which is once received is never lost; 
but the ratification effects the sacrament of marriage, so that 
in married people the one remains with the other,” 1.6. matri- 
momum ratum and the sacrament of marriage. 

The following chapter, Gaudemus,? has some further im- 
portant rulings. One who has repudiated an unbelieving 
consort may on no account marry a second time, except in 
one of the three cases already specified. If in one of these 
cases the converted partner exercise the right of second 
marriage, the subsequent conversion of the unbelieving partner 
establishes no right to reclamation of marriage. If, however, 
the converted partner has not married a second time before 
the conversion of the unbelieving partner, then Innocent rules 
that the partner first converted should be compelled to receive 
the other again. 


1 Decretales Gregorii, ix, lib, iv. 19. De Divortiis, ὁ, 7. Lae οἱ 8. 


Innocent 
III, (The 
Decretals.) 


S. Thomas 
Aquinas 
and S. 
Bonaven- 
ture, 


America 
and India, 
A.D. 1500, 


560 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The rulings of Innocent may be said to be the great authority 
for the practice of the Western Church in the matter for the 
last six centuries. 

It will be seen that the three cases in which remarriage is 
allowed; viz. (1) refusal to cohabit in any case, or (2) without 
blasphemy of the Divine name, or (3) without solicitation to 
mortal sin, are really equivalent to the χωρίζεται of S. Paul as 
interpreted by 8. Chrysostom. If the unbeliever be the cause 
of separation, then the brother or the sister is not bound; 
that is to say, rules Innocent, he or she may marry again. 

It is not to the great scholastic writers that the Church is 
most largely indebted for its teaching in marriage questions, 
but reference may be made to the conclusions of 8. Thomas 
Aquinas (A.D. 1224-1274) and 5. Bonaventure (A.D. 1221-1274). 
They are entirely in accordance with the rulings of Innocent IIT. 
Both see clearly that the key to the position is the essential 
dissolubility of non-Christian marriage. ὃ. Thomas says that 
the marriage of unbelievers is “imperfect,” and that “it is not 
altogether firm and ratum.”’+ 8. Bonaventure says that the 
“feebleness” (imbecillitas) of marriage contracted in unbelief 
renders dissolution possible, that disparity of worship disposes 
to such dissolution, and that injury of the Creator effects it.? 

With the discovery of America, and the opening out of 
intercourse with India by the Cape, at the end of the fifteenth 
century, there came a new era of missionary activity. The 
Portuguese ascendency in the East, with its centre at Goa, 
was, roundly speaking, coincident with the sixteenth century, 
rising to strength by A.p. 1500, and falling in strength from 
A.D. 1600. From the missionary point of view its importance 
lies in that great and successful effort which is identified with 
the honoured name of S. Francis Xavier. In America the 
propagation of Christianity formed part of the not very gentle 


suasions of the Spanish adventurers. In both parts of the 
world the difficult question which we are considering would 
not uncommonly present itself, and it would not fail to be 





1 §. Thomas Aquinas, Swmmee tertie partis suppl. qu. 59, art. 5. 
2 §. Bonaventure, Commentaries on the Sentences. On book iy. dist. 39, art. 2, 
qu. 1. (Opera Omnia, Rome, 1596, tom. vi. p. 500.) ἊΣ 


ρον. Pine ν᾿.» 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 9001 


complicated by the confusion of former utterances upon the 
subject. If, as Gratian and others had in fact taught, the 
dissolubility or indissolubility of the union depended in its 
essential character upon the expressed will of the unbelieving 

party, the central point which was above all else to be aimed 

at was the obtaining from the unbelieving partner a sufficient 
expression of his will. Hence a whole array of questions as 

to whether such expression of will might be lawfully dispensed 

with in cases where, by the absence or inaccessibility of the 
unbelieving partner, it was impossible or difficult to obtain 

such an expression of his will, and again, whether such 
dispensation, if possible, belonged to the Papal chair. The 

appeal to the unbelieving partner came to be technically 
known as the ¢nterpellatio, and where Gratian’s view was 
adopted, upon the result of the <interpellatio everything The Inter- 
depended. It was not, however, till the sixteenth century °°" 
had passed that this view rose into any great favour. In the 
sixteenth century itself authority seems generally to have 

taken firmer ground. Pope Paul IIL, in the Constitution Paul 1. 
Altitudo addressed in A.D. 1537 to the bishops of India, lays “” *53” 
down a ruling in what might have seemed to be an almost 
impossible case. When a _ polygamist on conversion to 
Christianity was unable to remember which of his wives he 
had married first, Paul decides that he may retain any one 
of the wives, whichever he may choose. The ordinary rule at 
the time was that a polygamist on his baptism was bound to 
dismiss all his wives except the first married, the inspiring 
principle of the rule being doubtless the view that such first- 
married wife was the one true wife, with regard to whom a 
vinculum must be held to exist. If this view had prevailed 
with Paul IIL, and with it the view that the vinculum of 
such a marriage was indissoluble at least till the interpellation 
had been made, his decision in the difficulty before him must 
necessarily have been that after some sufficient investigation 
it must be decided which of the wives had the best claim to 
be considered the first, and that then the converted husband 
must be held bound to her, if she was willing to abide without 





1 Bullariwm sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide, App. i. p. 25. 
20 


Pius V, 
A.D. 1571. 


Gregory 
XIII. 
A.D. 1585. 


562 HOLY MATRIMONY 


“contumely of the Creator.” The actual decision, however, 
was to the effect that the convert might choose which of the 
wives he liked, and therefore not less a young wife married 
a month previously than a wife of longer standing. To justify 
such a ruling it is necessary to premise that there is no 
essential indissolubility in any one of these marriages; and 
this may accordingly be assumed to be the view of Paul IIT. 

The same principle is contained in a Constitution of Pius V., 
dated 2nd August, 1571." This Constitution lays down that if 
any one of the wives is converted and baptized with the 
husband, he may retain such Christian wife in preference to 
the first wife of his unconverted condition. Here again we 
must premise, for the justification of the ruling, that all the 
marriages of such a person prior to baptism are essentially 
dissoluble, not less the first of such marriages than those 
which follow, and that their dissolubility depends in no wise 
on the interpellation. 

Gregory XIII. (Ap. 1572-1585), in the brief Populis ac 
nationibus (25th January, 1585), decides in the same sense. 
Reciting that many men having wives had been carried captive 
from Angola, Ethiopia, and Brazil, and that it was impossible 
in such cases to obtain an expression of the will of the un- 
believing party, he proceeds to convey to all bishops, parish 
priests, and priests of the Society of Jesus, the right of 
dispensing converts from the necessity of interpellation (e¢¢cam 
superstite conjuge infideli, et ejus consensu minime reqursito, 
responso non expectato). ‘The interpellation thus dispensed 
with, the convert may contract marriage with any of the 
faithful, and when once this marriage has been contracted, 
it is to be held binding for life.? 

Gregory expressly states where he looks for the justification 
of the divorce. The marriages of infidels, he says, are to be 
held true contracts, but not in such wise ratified (rata) that 
they cannot be dissolved when necessity urges it (necessitate 
suadente). There is then no essential indissolubility, and the 


1 Bullarium pontificiwm sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide, App. tom. i. 
p. 45 (Rome, 1841). 
2 Bullarium sacrae congregationis de propaganda fide, App. 1. p. 103. 





REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 563 


practical guide as to whether a particular union should be 
maintained or dissolved, is not necessarily in all cases the 
expression of the will of the unbelieving party, but may be 
the persuasive force of necessity. 

It will hardly be matter of surprise that the rulings of the 
Council of Lima (A.D. 1582), which were afterwards confirmed 
by Sixtus V. (A.D. 1585-90), should be something of a com- 
promise between the old stern prohibition of all union with 
unbelievers, which characterized the Spanish Church, and the 
more indulgent, not to say more scriptural and primitive, 
feeling of the Church at large. If the converted partner had 
reason to hope for the conversion of the unbelieving partner, 
he was not to proceed to a second marriage, but to await such 
conversion; and if such conversion was deferred, he was to 
wait six months, doing his best to bring it about. The six 
months ended, the matter was to be referred to the bishop, 
who, after careful examination of the case, was either (1) to 
rule that the convert was at liberty to proceed to a fresh 
marriage, “on account of the offence (scandalum) to faith or 
charity which he was suffering,’ or (2) if the bishop saw that 
- there was no danger in cohabitation, he was to bid the convert 
to await the unbeliever, or, if he thought it better, to counsel 
him to do 580.1 This ruling does not apply to any of the three 
cases in which the convert was generally recognised as set free ; 
viz., the departure of the unbeliever, the contumely of the 
Creator, or the enticement to mortal sin; and it is remarkable 
that while in these three cases the statement hitherto most 
commonly made had been to the effect that the convert was 
free, the Council of Lima declares that the “sacred canons will 
that such should of necessity be separated.’ It is, however, 
when none of these three reasons are forthcoming that the 
decision of the matter is made to depend, not on the will of 
the unbelieving partner, but on the judgment of the bishop, 
who is evidently to decide on grounds of expediency as to the 
life before the parties. If in the particular case he thinks that 
there is no great promise of a Christian life, but rather a 
certain danger in cohabitation, he is to proceed to declare the 


1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. 11. p. 324, 
20 2 


Council 
of Lima, 
A.D. 1582. 


Sacred 
Congre- 
gation of 
the 
Council, 
A.D. 1603. 


564 HOLY MATRIMONY 


convert at liberty to marry again, assigning as the ground the 
fidet aut charitatis scandalum, which appears to be a general 
phrase applicable on occasion to any case of mixed marriage ; 
but, on the other hand, if he anticipates no danger, he may 
decline to afford any such facility of remarriage, referring the 
convert to his former partner with more or less insistency. It 
does not appear very clearly whether the parties were allowed 
to come together during the prescribed time of expectancy. 
Presumably not, since to the convert such union must either 
have had the character of fornication or of Christian marriage ; 
and if it had once acquired the character of Christian marriage, 
the question would have been solved beyond the possibility of 
any other solution. But it is never safe thus to read inferences 
into documents, however apparently necessary they may be. 
The practical needs of the sixteenth century thus largely 
overthrew the doctrine that the solubility of the marriage 
depended on the will of the unbelieving party. But pre- 
sumably from abuse of the powers of dispensation thus 
accorded, alike in the missions of the East and in those of 
the West, we find the view of Gratian asserting itself again in 
a reply from the Sacra Congregatio Concilw, dated 23rd January, 
A.D. 1603. The Congregation laid down that “the aforesaid 
converts to the true faith can on no account accept other 
Christian wives, unless it be first established whether the first 
wives are willing to abide with them or not. But if these 
decline to cohabit, or will only cohabit with ‘contumely of the 
Creator, or in such wise as to drag the converted partner into 
mortal sin, that then the believing partners may accept other 
wives. If they are willing to cohabit without ‘contumely of 
the Creator, and without attempt to involve the converted 
partner in mortal sin, then, although they are unwilling to 
accept the true faith, yet the converted partners cannot re- 
ceive other Christian wives. That those matters which are 
brought forward, viz. distance of place, difficulty (of inter- 
pellation), and presumption, are not sufficient when it is 
necessary to have proof (constare debeat) of the will of the 
unbelieving wives themselves.”? The practical conclusions will 





1 Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom, 11. p. 313, quoting lib, x. Decret. p. 55. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 565 


commend themselves as being more in accordance with Holy 
Scripture than a lax system of dispensation. The stress laid 
upon the necessity of evidence as to the will of the unbelieving 
partner is clearly based upon the view of Gratian. 

A question of much importance in practice arose as a con- 
sequence of the view which we have called Gratian’s: If the 
marriages of non-Christians are essentially binding, only 
ceasing to have the entirely indissoluble character in the 
particular case of the unbeliever expressly refusing to abide 
(or to abide without “contumely of the Creator”), then it 
becomes important in practice to know at what precise point At what 
of time the union loses the binding character, and the convert 2? 


time does 
is left at liberty to contract a fresh marriage. Is it at the the union 


moment of conversion, or at that of baptism, or at the moment binding 
of the expression of the unbelieving partner’s will, or at the ‘er? 
moment of the remarriage of the unbelieving partner, or at 

that of the remarriage of the believing partner, or at what 
other point of time? A celebrated case turning upon this 
question came up before the Sacred Congregation of the 
Council in A.D. 1726, when Cardinal Lambertini, afterwards 
Benedict XIV., was secretary.1. A certain Jew named Abraham Case of 
had been married to a Jewess named Ricca Esther, who after a raters 
time became a convert to Christianity. On her conversion she Esther. 
made the usual interpellation to her husband, who declined to 
retain her. She was therefore free to marry again. While, 
however, she was held free to marry again, she did not in 

fact avail herself of this freedom, but remained unmarried. 
Abraham, having repudiated Ricca Esther, had, as a Jew, no 
scruple as to marrying again, and did in fact marry a certain 
Jewess named Bianca, who had been a servant in his household 

while Ricca was his wife. After several years had elapsed 

both Abraham and Bianca became convinced of the truth of 
Christianity, and were received as catechumens. They ex- 
pressed their wish that after baptism they might continue 

with one another in the marriage relation, and Ricca, the 





1 Thesaurus Resolutionum 8. Congreg. Concilii, 1726. See Hergenrother’s 
article, ‘‘Die Auflésung der Ehe durch das privilegium Paulinum,” in Der 
Katholik (Mainz) of 1883, p. 267. 


566 HOLY MATRIMONY 


former wife, had no objection to urge, as she, for her part, 
was not prepared to return to Abraham in any event. The 
case was referred to the Congregation on five points, of gue 
the first two are the most important. They were: 


(1) Whether the marriage contracted between Abraham and 
Ricca was still in force. 


(2) Whether Abraham, after the conversion of himself and 
Bianca, was bound to return to Ricca and leave 
Bianca. 


To both these questions the Congregation, in its sitting of 
the 27th July, 1726, replied in the affirmative. 

The case is full of interest. If the Congregation had taken 
the well-supported view that non-Christian marriages do not 
possess at any time the character of entire indissolubility, the 
decision would have been easy enough. ‘The second marriage, 
that of Abraham with Bianca, would have been maintained 
after the baptism, or rather it would have been allowed to 
become for the first time indissoluble, because Christian, 
marriage. The first marriage with Ricca Esther would have 
been held to have been dissolved from the time of the con- 
version of Ricca Esther, and of the separation of life which 
thereupon ensued. But this simple view does not appear to 
have come within the scope of the arguments with which the 
Congregation dealt. Starting from the premise that the non- 
Christian marriage with Ricca Esther had at one time possessed 
the binding character, the only question was as to when, if 
at all, that binding character had ceased to exist. Cardinal 
Lambertini guided the Congregation to the decision that the 
marriage must be held to be binding till such time as the 
converted partner effected another marriage. The refusal to 
abide on the part of the unbelieving partner did indeed supply 
the justification of divorce, without which it would have been 
impossible; but the divorce was not held to have been effected 
till the believing partner put it into practical force by 
contracting another marriage. Consequently the decision given 


was that Abraham must leave Bianca and return to Ricca 
Esther, 


al 


δ λων Δ Δ alte τισὶ 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 567 


The principle of Gratian, which Cardinal Lambertini adopted, Benedict 
and which the case of Abraham went to determine as to the *™’ 
time of its operation, is maintained in the well-known work 

De Synodo Dioecesana, which was published by Lambertini 
alter his accession to the Papacy, under his Papal name of 
Benedict XIV. In this book he states that “it is not com- 
petent. to a converted partner to pass over to other vows before 
that the unbelieving partner, having been interpellated, has 
either absolutely refused to cohabit with him, or has displayed 

his intention of indeed cohabiting with him, but not without 
‘contumely of the Creator””1! He admits, however, that 
where the interpellation is impossible a dispensation may be 
given. 

Some twenty years after the case of Abraham there occurred Case of 
in France a case which is, beyond all others, the cause célébre Porach 
of the subject. In connection with it the important Jansenist 
party in the Gallcan Church reopened the whole subject, 
taking the line that all marriages, non-Christian as well as 
Christian, were essentially indissoluble. 

The case was this. A certain Jew named Borach Levi was 
converted in the year 1752. Mendel Cerf, who had been his 
wife for fifteen years, refused to follow him, and demanded a 
divorce. Borach Levi was accordingly desirous of contracting 
another marriage, and to that end of having his marriage with 
Mendel Cerf either annulled or dissolved by proper authority. 
The case came on before the episcopal Curia of Soissons, which 
was then predominantly Jansenist, and this tribunal decided 
that the marriage with Mendel Cerf continued to bind, and 
that Borach Levi must be restrained from contracting another 
marriage. Borach Levi appealed from this decision to the 
parlement of the Province, where the case was re-heard. The 
result was that the finding of the episcopal Curia of Soissons 
was confirmed, and that by the sentence of M. Seguier, the 
Advocate-General, an Arrét was issued on the 2nd January, 
1758, forbidding Borach Levi to marry again during the life- 
time of Mendel Cerf. 


1 Benedict XIV., De Synodo Dioecesana, lib, i. c. 4, § 3. (Moguntia, 1840, 
tom. i. p. 420.) 





Questions 
of the 
Missions 
of Cochin, 
A.D. 1759. 


568 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The arguments of the Jansenist theologians are of great 
interest. It was fully admitted that both canonists and 
theologians for many centuries past had understood the words 
of S. Paul as permitting a real dissolution of marriage; but 
it was argued that this uniformity of view was not to be 
considered, since it could not possibly introduce an exception, 
however plausible it might seem, into that essential character 
of indissolubility which was stamped upon marriage by the 
law of Gop Himself. It was urged further that the source of 
the unanimity was not far to seek. The Canon Law here 
based mainly on the Decretal of Innocent IIL, and Innocent III. 
had only followed Gratian; and Gratian had based upon a 
passage ascribed by him to 8. Gregory, but which found no 
place in 8S. Gregory’s work. The passage seemed to be a 
quotation from a commentary, which had indeed been once 
assigned to 8. Ambrose, but which was now known to be none 
of his. It was therefore void of all authority, and nothing 
could be built upon it.? 

The decision of the French Parlement, which was indeed a 
secular tribunal, does not appear to have much affected the 
theory or practice of the Christian Church outside the lmits 
of France. The decision in the case of Borach Levi was given 
in A.D, 1758, and in the very next year (A.D. 1759) we find the 
Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office at Rome issuing a 
series of replies to questions submitted by the Missions of 
Cochin, which, to say the least, are startling by the license 
they afford.? 

The Missions of Cochin had been taught by experience that it 
occasionally happened that a convert and his unbelieving partner 
might continue to live as man and wife for several years, and 
that then the unbeliever might assert his independence, leave 
the Christian partner, and marry again. The Christian partner 
was thus left without a wife or husband, as the case might 
be, yet bound. It is, of course, this very inequality of the 
conditions of the marriage which renders the permission of 
S. Paul to continue the relation so great a concession; and it 





1 Conférences @ Angers ; Sur le mariage, p. 333. 
2 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 322. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 969 
might surely be understood that those who avail themselves 
of the concession must accept its possibilities. The Cochin 
Missions, however, raised the question whether the partner 
thus deserted was in fact bound, or whether his right of 
remarriage did not rather revert to him upon the desertion. 
The Sacred Congregation in their answer shewed how serious 
a matter it may be to base even a right practice on a wrong 
principle. Assuming, doubtless, that what dissolved these 
marriages was, as in Gratian’s view, the caprice of the un- 
believing partner, they proceeded to infer that whensoever this 
caprice came in, it would equally affect its result. Consequently 
at whatsoever time the unbelieving partner might desert the 
believing partner, the believing partner would become free from Duration of 
the marriage bond. In other words, the marriages in which pote. 
: Christian converts are permitted to continue after baptism on caprice 
: are simply marriages during the good pleasure of the un- oa 
believing partner. So far from being indissoluble, like the 
true marriages of the baptized, they are not even binding for 
a definite term. At any moment, when the caprice of the 
unbeliever shall so order it, will the believer become free 
to marry again on complying with the regulation as to 
enterpellatio. 
It might be thought that no more convincing reductio ad 
absurdum of the doctrine of Gratian could be asked for; but 
this doctrine, with all its consequences, seems to be still the 
most favoured conclusion in the Latin Church. Obviously it 
has the effect of altering the centre of gravity in the matter. 
Since it is the expression of the will of the unbeliever that 
makes the marriage of the believer to be either entirely 
dissoluble or entirely indissoluble, everything depends upon 
this expression of the will. Accordingly the Sacred Congrega- Eonore- 
tion de propaganda ide, in reply to the Vicar-Apostolic of gation de 
Western Tonquin in A.D. 1816, apply themselves to the Aiea 
elucidation of this point with much precision! (1) They “” ™* 
lay down that the interpellation is essential not only to the 
regularity of the separation as a judicial act, but even to its 
validity. The Papal dispensation may, however, be granted 





1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 824. 





570 HOLY MATRIMONY 


for lawful reasons. (2) They condemn the rough-and-ready 
method of the Spanish Church, to which Sanchez had given 
expression in the doctrine that the interpellation need only 
ask whether the unbeliever would be converted or not. The 
Congregation decides that the interpellation must ascertain 
whether the unbelever is willing to cohabit without “con- 
tumely of the Creator.” (8) No act of expulsion or divorce, 
however significant, is to be taken as dispensing with the 
interpellation, which is only to be dispensed with by the 
Apostolic See. (4) A curious question which was the fruit 
of Gratian’s doctrine next engaged attention. If the marriages 
of the heathen were essentially indissoluble in the case of non- 
Christians till the interpellation was made, how of the case of 
a woman who in her non-Christian days had first been married 
to, and then divorced by, a non-Christian husband? Was such 
a woman to be held bound to return to her former husband if 
he would have her, and if so, might she make conditions as to 
his putting away the woman whom he had subsequently taken ? 
The question discloses another of the difficulties which 15 
involved in the maintenance of the imdissoluble character of 
non-Christian marriage. The Congregation appear to be more 


-in harmony with Christian practice than with the logic of 


Synod of 
Su-chu, 


their own position, when they reply that the woman may be 
baptized without any condition regarding her former marriage. 
(5) Another most important question which the doctrine of 
Gratian affected was the question as to the statws of one who 
had divorced an unbelieving partner for adultery. The 
Congregation, still assuming the essentially indissoluble 
character of non-Christian marriage, decide that a separation 
of life is permissible, and that the Christian partner is not 
required to cohabit, though the other may be willing to do 
so without “contumely of the Creator.” There is, however, 
no sanction given for the dissolution of marriage in this 
case. 

The decisions of the Synod of the Vicariate of Su-chu in 
1803, which were subsequently approved by the Sacred 
Congregation de propaganda Fide, are also of interest as 
defining how far interpellation was obligatory, and where 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 571 


dispensation might come in.t' This Synod also took in hand 

the difficulty arising from the existing rule as to polygamous 
converts. That rule laid down that a polygamist might, after The wives 
conversion and baptism, retain that one of his wives which he εἰμ 
preferred, provided that she too become a Christian, and 
provided also that the wife first married declined to be 
converted. Here a dilemma presented itself. If the wife 
first married was wife in a sense not shared by the others; if, 
in fact, she was the wife; and if, farther, the marriage of non- 
Christians was indissoluble till interpellation had been made, 
and the unwillingness to abide made certain, why was not 
the polygamous husband bound to make the interpellation to 
her, and bound to retain her as his wife, if she was willing 
to abide without “contumely of the Creator”? If, on the 
other hand, the first wife was not bound to him more than 
any other, or if she was not bound by any tie which the 
Christian Church could recognise as indissoluble pending 
interpellation, why should the husband be required to marry 
such first wife instead of any other, in the event of her 
becoming a convert? The Synod of Su-chu accordingly 
decided that the duty of interpellation must be read into the 
rule as to polygamist converts, and that it must be understood 
that such converts were not at liberty to choose any wife but 
the first till the first had been interpellated. As, however, 
the rule as to polygamous converts distinctly permitted the 
rejection of the first wife, if she refused to become a Christian, 
the interpellation in such cases was not to be the usual enquiry 
whether the wife was willing to abide without “ contumely of 
the Creator,” but whether she would become a Christian. The 
inconsistency of thus substituting an altogether different 
interpellation needs no comment. This particular interpella- 
tion was in fact (for ordinary cases of remarriage of converts) 
condemned, as we have seen, by the Sacred Congregation de 
propaganda fide in 1816. The simple fact was, that the rule 
about polygamist converts and the rule about interpellation the tater 
were irreconcileable. te fe 


Church. 
Nothing has been cited in this chapter from the law and 


1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 318, 





Mixed 
marriages, 


572 HOLY MATRIMONY 


practice of the later English Church, because there is nothing 
to cite. On this subject Father Puller may be quoted.? 
“As regards the law and practice of England, Dr. Walter 
Phillimore,? the Chancellor of Lincoln, writes to me to say 
that he cannot find that the question has ever been discussed. 
When one remembers that until the seventeenth century 
England had no possessions in heathen countries, and that 
the Jews were expelled from the kingdom from Edward L., and 
were not re-admitted until the time of the Commonwealth, 
this curious fact becomes intelligible. . . . Dr. Phillimore goes 
on to say, ‘But is it not possible that a preliminary question 
arises Whether the law of England would think there was any 
need of a divorce? Apparently it would not, if the heathen 
marriage were polygamous. Lord Penzance, sitting in the 
Divorce Court, in the case of Hyde v. Hyde and Woodmansee 
(Law Reports, 2 Probate and Divorce, p. 130), in a judgment 
well worth looking at, refused so far to recognize a Mormon 
marriage as to grant a divorce from it, saying that such a 
marriage was not, in the Christian sense, or in the sense under- 
stood in his Court, a marriage at all. He thought it made 
no difference that in the case in question there was actual 
monogamy, as there might have been at any time polygamy.’ ” 

In pursuing the subject of the remarriage of converts we 
have for the time left on one side the related subject of mixed 
marriages. Is it lawful in any case for a baptized Christian 
to marry a non-Christian or person unbaptized? It is in- 
disputable, as has been seen, that in the Church of the 
centuries between Constantine and Justinian not only were 
there many instances of such mixed marriages, but that 
discipline with regard to such cases was practically imopera- 
tive. The case of Synesius actually shews a Christian 
patriarch marrying a Christian woman with the Christian 
benediction to a non-Christian man. It cannot, however, be 
said that the practice was at any time approved. 

From the time of Justinian it is on the whole true to say 
that the tendency was to restore the primitive condemnation 





1 Father Puller, in Occasional Papers of the Oxford Mission to Calcutta. 
2 Now Sir Walter Phillimore. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 573 


of mixed marriages. For some centuries it would appear 
that, notwithstanding peremptory prohibitions, a marriage 
between a Christian and a non-Christian was not regarded 
as essentially null and void. As, however, larger powers of 
discipline were achieved, this result was at length attained, 
and still remains, under ordinary circumstances, the eccle- 
siastical law of Western Christendom. The phrase “ under 
ordinary circumstances” has to be inserted, because the com- 
paratively recent practice of Papal dispensation has intro- 
duced exceptions. 

The more Western Councils of the sixth century can best 
be treated together, although some of them belong by date 
to the former period. The Council of Agde, in A.D. 506, Council 
forbids marriage with heretics except when they promise to ed 
become Catholics. Whether they would be required to fulfil 
the promise before marriage is not stated. The Second Council Second 
of Orleans, in A.D. 533, prohibits intermarriage with Jews Ones 
altogether. It pronounces such marriages unlawful (cdlicctas),} 4->- 533. 
requires persons so united to separate, and decrees excom- 
munication in ease of refusal.2 The Council of Clermont, in Council of 
A.D. 535, speaks of intermarriage between a Christian and a) cee 
Jew as “so great a wickedness” (tantum nefas), and excom- 
municates offenders.2 The Third Council of Orleans, in A.D. Thira 
538, forbids Christians, under pain of excommunication, to Oraenaee 
have any connection with Jewish marriages. Another 4-»- 538. 
Council of Orleans, in A.D. 541, decrees that a Jew who Fourth 
attempts to unite to himself a Christian maidservant is to ee 
be deprived of his slaves.° The Third Council of Toledo, in 4». 541. 
A.D. 589, also prohibits Jews to have Christian women as Thira 
wives or concubines, and requires that any children born of τοι οὗ 
such unions shall be brought to baptism.6 The Fourth «>. 589. 
Council of Toledo, in A.p. 633, has already been noticed as poutn 
denying to a Jew the society even of a wife who has become Council of 
a convert to Christianity (quae jam in Christianam translata cerare 


est fidem).’ It is of course not less peremptory in other cases, 





1 Mansi, tom, viii. p. 336. 
3 Ibid. p. 838. 3 Ibid. p. 861. 4. Ibid. tom. ix. p. 15. 
5 Ibid. p. 118. 5 Ibid. tom. vi p. 996. 7 Ibid. tom. x. p. 634. 


Instances. 


The 
Canonists. 


Mixed 
marriages 
forbidden 
rather by 


574 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Jewish husband must become a convert himself or forego 
the union. The Spanish Church simply takes the line that 
all unions between Christians and non-Christians are essentially 
inadmissible. 

Notwithstanding the more entire prohibition of marriage 
between Christians and non-Christians, which characterizes 
the Councils of this period, occasional instances of such 
marriage do not fail to occur. Thus Clotilda, a Christian 
princess of the Burgundian kingdom, was married to Clovis, 
the Frankish king, in A.D. 492 or 493, her father, Gundobald, 
being afraid to refuse. In the following century Bertha 
(Bereta), daughter of Caribert, king of Paris, another Chris- 
tian princess, was married to Ethelbert, king of Kent (AD. 
590?), on the condition that she should be ‘allowed the 
exercise of her religion, and should be attended by a bishop. 

After the Councils which have been cited, there is little or 
nothing to be found on the subject of mixed marriages between 
Christians and non-Christians till we come to the age of the 
Canonists. Gratian classes such marriages with marriages 
within the prohibited degrees, as being “contrary to the 
decree of Gop or of the Church.” “All these,” he says, “if 
they have coupled themselves, are to be separated.”+ Roland 
(Alexander III.) expresses the opinion that there is nothing 
to prevent the espousal or betrothal of two persons of whom 
one is not a Christian, as such betrothal is only a contract 
concerning the future, provided always that the marriage is 
not actually consummated prior to the baptism of the un- 
believer. A marriage consummated between a believer and 
an unbeliever is not recognised. Of the other Canonists of 
the middle ages, Bernard says that parties so marrying are to 
be separated; Tancred, that their marriage is null; Robert of 
Malmsbury, that it is not marriage. ὃ 

By such continued utterances of the Canonists the legal 
principle came to be established that the marriage of a 
Christian with a non-Christian was simply null and void. 


1 Gratian’s Decretwm, Causa xxvili. qu. 1, c. 14. 
2 Thaner, Die Summa Magistri Rolandi, 138, 140, 141. (Quoted by Freisen, 641.) 
3 Freisen, pp. 641, 642. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 575 


Benedict XIV., in his Constitution Singulart nobis (A.D. 1749), 
points out that this principle is not established so much by 
the canons, which prohibit mixed marriages, but without 
expressly declaring them null and void, as by the customary 
law of the Church. “All agree,” he says, “that marriages 
are void by reason of difference of religion, not indeed by the 
law of the sacred canons, but by the general custom of the 
Church, which has now been in force for many centuries, and 
obtains the authority of law.” 

Notwithstanding, however, this “general custom of the 
Church,” the insidious system of Papal dispensation was 
brought to bear upon this matter without, as it would seem, 
any attempt to find justification or authority in the mind 
of the Church. As early as A.D. 1669 we find Clement IX. 
writing to the Bishop of Heliopolis, and according a faculty 
of dispensation in the matter of mixed marriages.2 Alike 
to that bishop and to the apostolic vicars in China, Tonquin, 
and Cochin China was accorded the right to dispense with the 
impediment of difference of religion for the period of fifteen 
years next following. In granting such dispensations the 
vicars were to be careful to grant them only for grave reasons, 
and in places where there were more infidels than Christians. 
But whatsoever restrictions were then and afterwards imposed, 
the principle of the essential nullity of such marriages was 
broken through, and may be said to be now given up by the 
Roman Catholic Church. It would be of no service to cite 
the various faculties of dispensation which have followed the 
action of Clement IX. There can be no better witness than 
Benedict XIV., who was not only a Pope, but a most able 
Canonist, that the custom of the Church had for centuries 
regarded such marriages as null. If they are null in their 
essential character, the modern action of the Popes in granting 
dispensations cannot count for much. It is certain that the 
system of dispensations leads to grave difficulties in practice. 
If a marriage, continued after the conversion of one of the 
parties, is hable, according to a decree already referred to, to 


1 Freisen, p. 643. 
2 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 884, 


customary 
law than 
by canon. 


Papal dis- 
pensations. 


576 HOLY MATRIMONY 


be brought to an end at any time by the caprice of the un- 
believing partner, what is there more sacred in a mixed 
marriage contracted, even by dispensation, without the justifi- 
cation of prior existence, that can render such a marriage less 
liable to an equally abrupt termination? Accordingly we find 
this very case submitted to the Congregation of the Holy 
Office by the Missions of Cochin, in A.D. 1759, in the same 
set of questions already referred to.' The question submitted 
is as follows: “Whether a baptized Christian (fidelzs), who has 
by dispensation validly contracted matrimony with an un- 
believer, may pass to a second marriage if the unbeliever 
depart, or decline to cohabit, or solicit her to the committal 
of mortal sin”? The reply is well worthy of notice: “If a 
Christian, by previous dispensation, has contracted matrimony 
with an unbeliever, he is to be regarded as having contracted 
that (matrimony) with an explicit condition; viz. that of 
course it could only be so long as the unbeliever was willing 
to cohabit with him without ‘contumely of the Creator.’ 
Wherefore, if the unbeliever do not observe the aforesaid 
condition, the remedies of the law are to be applied to this 
end, that she do observe it. Failing this, they ought to be 
separated quoad torum et cohabitationem, but not quoad vin- 
culum. It follows that in the case under question the 
Christian cannot pass to a second marriage while the un- 
believing partner survives.” 

By this decision the Congregation escaped the horrible 
alternative that the Pope could dispense Christians to contract 
temporary and conditional marriages, which the caprice of the 
unbelieving partner might at any time dissolve. But it does 
not appear why such a marriage by dispensation should be 
more sacred than the marriage of a Christian who had been 
converted after marriage, and had received a special sanctifica- 
tion of the Holy Spirit for the circumstances of his union. 
The more recent practice of the Roman Catholic Church is 
indeed hopelessly involved in contradictions. 

The history of the subject in the West from the time of 
Justinian is now before us. 


1 Quoted by Perrone, De Matrimonio, tom. ii. p. 322. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES τ ἢ 


First, as regards the remarriage of converts. In the earlier 
centuries of the period there is no cohesion of either sentiment 
or practice. To the Spanish Churches of the Visigothic king- 
doms, all unions of Christians with the unbaptized were a 
horror; even the convert must leave the unconverted partner, 
unless he too would be baptized. In Italy and Germany all 
marriage was treated as indissoluble, not less that contracted 
outside Christianity than Christian marriage itself. The re- 
marriage of the married convert was therefore not admitted, 
but only separation of life. In England the teaching of 
Theodore, derived from the East, held unbelief in the partner 
to be a sufficient ground for divorce and remarriage. 

The period of the Canonists, which centres in the Decretum 
of Gratian, threshed out many of the difficulties which surround 
the subject, and left behind it as result the teaching which is 
embodied in the Decretals in a ruling of Innocent IIL: “If 
one of two unbelieving consorts be converted to the Catholic 
faith, but the other be not willing to cohabit with him (1) in 
any case, or (2) without blasphemy of the Divine name, or (3) 
without drawing him on to mortal sin; he who is thus deserted 
may pass over to a second marriage if he will.” This has been 
the Canon Law of Western Christendom upon the subject for 
the last six hundred years. 

_ The missionary activity of the last four centuries has made 
the subject one of constant recurrence in practice, and has 
directed much attention to certain points of secondary im- 
portance. Of these one of the most prominent is found in 
the question, Wherein lies the justifying cause of divorce in 
the cases of married converts? All are agreed that the 
conditions which render separation and remarriage blameless 
to the Christian partner are. the conditions specified by 
Innocent III.; but do these conditions alter the character of 
the existing marriage from essential indissolubility to essential 
dissolubility, or do they simply supply the one which renders 
it blameless to act upon the fact of the dissolubility of non- 
Christian marriage which already exists? The latter is the 
more natural and less artificial view; but the view that the 
caprice of the unbelieving partner was that which retained or 
2 P 


A. Re- 
marriage of 
converts. 


B. Mixed 
marriages, 


578 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dismissed the indissoluble vinculum of the existing union has 
been on the whole the most widely accepted in the Latin 
Church, and it has led to great refinements of direction in the 
matter of interpellation, in order that the will of the un- 
believing partner might be sufficiently expressed. 

Another point of considerable importance arises from the 
enquiry as to when the dissolution is effected. If the dissolu- 
tion takes effect because the prior bond has no indissoluble 
character, and the convert is not required by Christian charity 
in the given case to make the tie indissoluble by continuing it 
after his baptism, the answer is easy. As there never has been 
an indissoluble union, so there is no need of a magic moment 
in which the indissoluble character shall pass away. The 
convert, from the moment of separation, must be held to be 
unfettered by any bond of marriage. If, however, as Gratian 
holds, and as has been very commonly held, the non-Christian 
marriage had the indissoluble character, it becomes necessary 
to fix a moment when the indissoluble character is lost. The 
Latin Church of the last century decided that this moment 
was the moment of the remarriage of the converted partner. 
Till that moment, though it should be fifty years after the 
separation, the original marriage-bond held both the parties 
to it. 

A new departure, having no warrant in the teaching or 
practice of antiquity, permits the unbelieving partner to 
exercise his caprice, and thereby dissolve the marriage-bond 
to both the Christian partner and himself, even when the 
union has existed for some time after baptism. What then, 
it must be asked, has been the character of the marriage of 
the Christian partner in the interim? If it has not been 
Christian marriage, and therefore indissoluble, what has it 
been ? 

As regards mixed marriages between Christians and non- 
Christians, the attitude of the Church throughout the period 
from Justinian onwards is one of prohibition. The early 
Councils might not be able to render such marriages invalid 
by their prohibitions, but this result became the customary 
law of the Church in the Middle Ages, and has been accepted 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 579 


as such without much question for the last six hundred years. 
The force of the principle has, however, been much weakened 
in recent centuries by the system of Papal dispensations, 
which assume the power of authorising marriages between 
Christians and non-Christians in particular cases. 
Broadly speaking, the results of eighteen and a half centuries summary 


aye : : of the 
of Christian teaching and practice are that— a RR 


historical 


A. In the West, married converts may obtain a divorce with jetrospect. 


right of remarriage 
1. If the unbeliever refuse to abide. 
2. If he will not abide without “contumely of 
the Creator.” 
3. If he will not abide without soliciting the 
Christian partner to the commission of 
mortal sin. 
In the East, the mere refusal of the unbelieving partner to 
be converted is held to be an adequate ground of divorce, 
with right of remarriage. 


B. In the East and West alike, marriages between baptized 
persons and persons unbaptized stand prohibited, but 
in the later Western Church a power of Papal 
dispensation has been sometimes assumed. 


The historical survey, so far as it concerns non-Christians, 
is now concluded; but a further point must be adverted to 
before the survey can be dismissed. If marriages between what con- 
Christians and non-Christians are entirely barred, great im- Aspe af 
portance attaches to the question, What constitutes a Christian 
for the purposes of marriage? Is a Christian the same as a 
Catholic, or does the name include schismatics, while rejecting 
heretics, or does it include any sort of heretics to whom the 
Christian name is apphed? The unanimous answer of the 
historic churches to these questions at the present day is that 
a Christian is one baptized with such baptism as the Church 
can recognise as valid. He may be a schismatic, or even a 
heretic, provided that his baptism has been adequately ad- Baptism. 


ministered. Otherwise he is not recognised as a Christian at all. 
oe ec 


No clear 
distinction 
in ancient 
days. 


580 HOLY MATRIMONY 


It may be well here to recall the limitations of our subject. 
In this treatise enquiry is being made only into the Divine 
laws of marriage. Countless regulations, in East and West 
alike, prohibit every description of mixed marriage as ob- 
viously opposed to the highest conception of married unity. 
But inasmuch as mixed marriages between Catholics and 
heretics are upon occasion recognised and accounted valid, 
notwithstanding all such prohibitions, it follows that these 
prohibitions are held to be of positive or ecclesiastical, and not 
of Divine, obligation, Accordingly they fall outside the sub- 
ject of this treatise, which is only concerned to know that by 
the unanimous consent of Christendom the marriage of two 
baptized persons, however ecclesiastically prohibited, is never, 
like marriage with the heathen, essentially inadmissible. 

This clear distinction was, however, never clearly reached in 
ancient days. It will have been noticed how, in Council after 
Council, heretics have been classed with heathens in the various 
prohibitory canons enacted against mixed marriages. The 
result in the period between Constantine and Justinian ap- 
pears to have been not so much that marriages with heretics 
were rendered invalid, as that marriages with heathens were 
more and more acquiesced in. As has been seen, after the 
first three centuries such marriages with heathens do not 
appear to have been commonly treated as essentially null and 
void and incapable of recognition, till the middle ages. A 
fortiori marriages with heretics, however protested against, 
would not fail to find acquiescence. With the definite ex- 
clusion of the non-Christian as an admissible consort for the 
Christian, the question of the difference in this matter between 
the heretic and the heathen first rose into practical import- 
ance. There had never been any question that mixed mar- 
riages between Catholics and heretics were greatly to be 
deplored; there was no question that from the earliest times 
such unions had been abundantly prohibited by ecclesiastical 
regulation; there was, in other words, no question that they 
were gravely irregular; but when once they had been effected | 
were they to be held, like marriages with the heathen, null and 
void because essentially inadmissible, or were they, with what- 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 581 


soever imposition of penance, capable of recognition? In fine, 
was the heretic a Christian or a non-Christian ? 

The Canonists of the twelfth century are found still con- 
fusing heretics and heathens without much heed. Gratian, 
following the Councils of Agde and Laodicea, while forbidding 
marriages with heretics, is ready to allow them validity if the 
heretic will promise to become a “Christian.”! Bernard of 
Pavia concluded that a fidelis might not marry a woman who 
was a Pagan, a Jewess, or a heretic, and that if he so married, 
he was to be separated. Tancred, similarly classing heretics 
with Jews and Pagans, says that if Christians contract mar- 
riage with any of these, the marriage is null? The Glossa 
ordinaria to the Decretum—a commentary assigned to the 
13th century—remarking on the teaching of Gratian just 
cited, adduces the opinion, as held in his day, that though a 
heretic was not allowed to contract marriage with a Christian, 
yet if he did so contract marriage, the marriage held good, just 
as in the case of one who married a person excommunicate.* 

The question cannot be said to have received adequate con- 
sideration, till the great schisms of the Reformation period 
made the matter of the greatest practical importance. Through- 
out the seventeenth century it gave rise to much difference of 
opinion, but as regards the attitude of the Latin Church it is 
hardly necessary here to do more than quote the declaration 
of the Sacred Congregation of the Council, issued in the name 
of Benedict XIV. under date of the 4th November, 1741. 

“First, so far as relates to marriages celebrated by heretics with 
one another in places subject to the dominion of the Federated 
States (of the Netherlands), and in which the form prescribed by the 
Council of Trent has not been observed; although His Holiness is 
not unaware that the Sacred Congregation of the Council has, in 
certain particular instances and with regard to the circumstances 
then adduced, replied differently and to the effect that such marriages 
were invalid: notwithstanding, holding it to be none the less estab- 








1 Gratian’s Decretum, c. 28, qu. 1, c. 16. 

2 Laspeyres, Bernardi Papiensis Fav. episcopi summa decretalium, p. 291. 
(Freisen, p. 641.) 

3 Wunderlich, Tancredi summa de matrimonio, p. 44, (Freisen, p. 641.) 

4 Freisen, p. 642. 


The 
Canonists. 


Benedict 
XIV. 
A.D, 1741. 


582 HOLY MATRIMONY 


lished’ that nothing has hitherto been defined by the Apostolic See 
concerning marriages of this character, taken generally and in the 
mass, while yet a declaration as to what view should be taken of 
such marriages considered generally is eminently desirable, at once 
for the counsel of all the faithful who inhabit those regions, and for 
the averting of many very grave inconveniences: after due study of 
the matter, and a careful weighing of all the arguments on either 
side, (His Holiness) declares and decrees that marriages between 
heretics in the said Federated Provinces of Belgium, as well those 
contracted up to the present as those which shall hereafter be 
contracted, are to be accounted as valid, notwithstanding that the 
form prescribed by the Council of Trent has not been observed in 
the celebration of them, provided always that no other canonical 
impediment stand in the way. Further, and consequently, that if it 
come about that both consorts betake themselves to the bosom of 
the Catholic Church, they are altogether bound by the same marriage- 
bond as before, even if their mutual consent be not renewed by 
them in the presence of the Catholic parish priest; and that, if 
only one of the parties, whether the man or the woman, be converted, 
neither can proceed to a second marriage so long as the other is alive. 

“With regard to those marriages, which are contracted by Catholics 
with heretics in the same provinces of Belgium similarly without the 
form appointed by the Council of Trent, whether a Catholic man 
marry ἃ woman who is a heretic, or a Catholic woman marry a 
heretical man, His Holiness is exceedingly grieved that among 
Catholics there should be persons, who being shamefully demented 
by a mad affection, fail to abhor from their hearts, and to regard as 
entirely to be avoided by them, these hateful marriages, which Holy 
Mother Church has constantly condemned and forbidden; and he 
greatly commends the zeal of those prelates who make it their care 
to compel Catholics, by the provision of severe spiritual penalties, 
not to unite themselves to heretics in this sacrilegious bond. He, 
accordingly, solemnly and gravely exhorts and warns all bishops, 
vicars-apostolic, parish priests, missionaries, and all other faithful 
ministers whomsoever of Gop and of the Church, that to the utmost 
of their ability they deter Catholics of either sex from entering 
upon marriages of this kind to the hurt of their own souls, and that 
they use their endeavours in every suitable way to turn aside and 
effectually hinder such marriages. If, however, by chance any 
marriage of this kind has been already contracted in those parts, 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 583 


without the observation of the form of the Council of Trent, or if 
such a marriage should happen to be contracted hereafter (which 
may Gop avert), His Holiness declares that a marriage of this kind 
is to be accounted valid, if there be no other canonical impediment, 
and that neither of the consorts can in any way enter upon a new 
marriage under colour that the said form has not been observed, so 
long as the other consort shall survive.” 

The lines thus laid down by Benedict XIV. for Belgium have 
been followed by his successors wherever occasion demanded. 
Mixed marriages with heretics, while in every way discouraged, 
are accounted valid. Heretics are therefore held to be capable 
of Christian marriage. The principle is held to apply no less 
to the Pauline privilege. A heretical partner may not be put 
away, as being a case under the privilege, on the conversion 
of the other partner to the Catholic faith. The marriage is 
already Christian marriage, and therefore indissoluble.? 

In the East the same practical results have been everywhere 
reached, though without the same clearness of authoritative The East. 
decision. There has been considerable controversy, and the 
question of mixed marriages with heretics and schismatics 
occupies much space in Eastern systems of Canon Law, which 
make a great theoretical difference between heretics and 
schismatics. In practice it may be said there is no want 
of readiness in admitting the validity of a marriage where the 
non-orthodox party has been sufficiently baptized.* 

In the English Church the validity of marriages between 
Churchmen and Nonconformists, or between two Noncon- the 
formists, has never been seriously questioned. rates 

Accordingly the unanimous verdict of the historic churches 
acknowledges those persons as capable of Christian marriage 
who have been sufficiently baptized. 


IIT. Reason. 
The appeal to Reason has been largely anticipated in the 
preceding pages, either as introduction to or as comment upon 
1 Von Schulte, Handbuch des Katholischen Eherechts, pp. 235, sqq. 
2 On the whole question of baptism as the qualification for Christian marriage 
see a valuable paper by Cardinal Tarquini, Veber das Paulinische Privileg, in the 


Archiv. fur Katholisches Kirchenrecht (Mainz) for 1888, p. 224, sqq. 
3 Zhishman, Das Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, pp. 512-561. 


Conclusion. 





Mixed 
marriages 


too unequal 


to be 
admitted. 


(a) 
Essenti- 
ally, 


(b) From 
difference 
of 


conditions. 


A special 
grace 


supplied to 


584 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the teaching of Holy Scripture and of Christian history. 
Some statement of the rationale of the subject will not, how- 
ever, be superfluous. 

(1) If it be granted that Christian marriage has the nature 
of a Christian sacrament, and that in the union of two members 
of the body of Christ there is not only a restoration of the 
original institution, but a recasting of it in the mould of that 
membership of the persons in Christ’s body, it follows that a 
union between one who is a member of Christ’s body and one 
who is not is an altogether unequal union. Nor is it reasonable 
to say that for the Christian partner all the blessedness of 
Christian marriage may be expected. Marriage is essentially 
a condition of mutual and reciprocal advantage, not less 
spiritually than otherwise, and in a mixed marriage of a 
Christian with a non-Christian its proper character is never 
attained. Consequently such mixed marriages are essentially 
inadmissible, their inadmissibility depending not merely upon 
any differences in the conditions of the marriage accepted by 
the two parties, but upon the inequality of their status, which 
renders the full character of Christian matrimony unattainable 
by either. In practice the difference of the conditions of 
marriage accepted by the Christian and the non-Christian 
partners, would often be sufficient to invalidate a marriage, 
quite apart from the essential inadmissibility which results 
from the difference of status. Thus the marriage of a Christian 
woman with a Musalman man, in which the one accepts the 
duty of exclusive faithfulness and the other does not, is in- 
admissible as Christian marriage from want of mutuality. It 
would be no less inadmissible under similar conditions if both 
parties were Christians. 

(2) Notwithstanding the truth of the statement that mixed 
marriages between Christians and non-Christians do not attain 


the married the proper character of Christian marriage, it has pleased 


convert. 


Almighty Gop, to obviate the inconveniences of separation in 
the case of converts, to confer a special grace, by which the 
married convert is enabled to obtain the fulness of the blessing 
of Christian marriage. That fulness would in the ordinary 
course have failed at every point where mutual relations came 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 585 


in. Accordingly the grace is supplied by the sanctifying of the 
unbelieving partner for the use of the believer. Not holy in 
his own being, the unbelieving partner is, notwithstanding, 
enabled to render all his relations with his wife relations 
having to her that stamp of holiness which is proper to 
Christian marriage. 

(3) The supply of this grace, without which the Christian This grace 
partner would presumably have been bound to separate from there 
the unbeliever, is not only a justification of continuance, but a convert te 


requirement that, without some sufficient ground of separation Seat 
supplied by the unbelieving partner, no separation shall be ἐδραρλοῖξ 
made. The Christian partner is responsible for welcoming pee 
Gop’s willingness to sanctify the union to him in all its mutual 
relations. Such as the marriage was, it had its share in the 

original institution, and should be sanctified and continued, 

rather than set aside and supplanted. 

(4) While, however, the Christian partner is required, by But the 
reason of his responsibility for Gon’s offer of sanctifying grace, τοάμτθ κα 
to continue the union after baptism, if he reasonably can, the from the 
requirement comes to him from that responsibility, and not Ἐπ 
from the fact that prior to baptism the union has possessed aaabed 
the indissoluble character. It has borne the mark of the Fall; of the 
it has probably been entered upon subject to polygamy and cage ast 
divorce; it is certainly not instinct with the holiness of 
marriage as it is found in the body of Christ; and in dealing 
with such unions Gop in history has not insisted that they 
should be treated as indissoluble. Indissolubility alone could 
neither restore them to the sinlessness of the original institu- 
tion, nor raise them to the transformed character of holiness 
which is given to Christian marriage. 

Essentially, therefore, marriages prior to baptism are to be 
regarded as soluble. 


(5) If, accordingly, the unbeliever is the cause of separation If there be 


, ὲ ᾿ ground for 
(χωρίζεται), which may be understood in the terms of the ootstion, 
Western rule— the convert 

᾿ ἐ ἱ may marry 
(a) If he decline to abide in any case, again, 


(0) or without contumely of the Creator, 
(c) or without solicitation to grave sin, 


586 HOLY MATRIMONY 


separation is open. ‘There is no indissoluble bond, and the 
offer of sanctifying grace in this case makes no requirement. 
“A brother or a sister is not bound in such a case.” 
If the (6) If the believer, finding the unbeliever willing to abide 
union be ~~ in all reasonableness, continue the union after his baptism, the 


continued 
suri f union acquires to him, by reason of the special sanctifying 
becomes grace, the full character of Christian marriage. It is there- 
7 a fore indissoluble. The unbelieving partner may perhaps go, 
Christian. in after years, by reason of the freedom which he has never 
surrendered, but to the Christian partner Christian marriage 
once achieved does not admit divorce. The unbelieving 
partner, sanctified to the Christian partner, is so sanctified 
for the term of their mutual lives. 
Casesnot (7) While the special grace of sanctification offered to 
aes *Y the married convert requires him to endeavour to continue 
agai the union, where the union has the main features of marriage, 
or not and may to him at least become holy with all the holiness of 
requiring Christian marriage, it is obvious that some forms of union 
tinuance. yecoonised by the secular laws as marriages lie altogether 
outside this provision. 

(a) Thus the union of a man with a polyandrous wife, in a 
Himalayan tribe or among the Nairs, not only need not be 
continued after his baptism, but may not be so continued, since 
it would involve the man in the sin of connivance at adultery, 
and of the confusio prolis. 

(0) Again, the temporary marriages of the Shia Musulmans, 
by which a man and a woman may be legally united for a 
term of twelve months or even less, is not a union which 
prima facie ought to be continued. If the Musulman declares 
that he has a general intention in the union to renew it in- 
definitely, and in fact to be faithful for life, it is arguable that 
the Christian partner should be allowed to continue the union, 
if the Musulman is willing to renew it without temporary 
conditions. It is hardly arguable, however, that the Christian 
could ever in such a case be required to continue the union. 

_ (c,d) The case of the (ὁ) polygamous husband, one or more 
of whose wives is baptized, is more difficult, and may be con- 
sidered with the partially analogous case of an (d) adulterous 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 587 


husband. In neither case does anything in the facts prevent 
the wife from giving the husband a wifely allegiance lifelong 
and exclusively faithful; and the teaching and practice of the 
early Church do not regard the wife whose husband is adul- 
terous as guilty of sinful connivance, or as in any way bound 
to repudiate the marriage. On the other hand, she is at lberty 
to repudiate him, and when she exercises that right prior to 
baptism, it appears to carry with it the right of remarriage. 
There is no indissoluble bond, and continuance of the union is 
not demanded of the convert. On the other hand, there 
appears to be no question that a woman may elect to continue 
her marriage with an adulterous non-Christian husband if she 
will, and it does not at all appear that she would thereby lose 
her right of separating from him at some later period on the 
eround of continued adultery. When, however, she has once 
carried the marriage into the Christian state, it becomes to her 
Christian marriage, and is thenceforth indissoluble, though she 
may afterwards claim separation of life. The case of the wife 
of a polygamist is to some extent analogous. Indeed, so far as 
the woman is concerned, it would be simply a particular case of 
the adultery of the husband, if only the wife had ground for 
assurance that her wifely rights were superior to those of the 
other wives. This, however, is exactly the point where the 
case of the polygamist’s wife becomes difficult. Her union 
was, subject to conditions, always intended to be lifelong and 
exclusively faithful; but this was not less the case with the 
other wives. Neither she nor any of the others can lay claim 
to rights as of the only true wife, where each married under 
the provisions of a system of law which recognises no such 
rights of an only true wife. The wife first married accepted 
polygamy 7m posse as fully as the later wives accepted poly- 
gamy in fact. Further, polygamy is so considerable a corrup- 
tion of the original institution of marriage that there can 
hardly be doubt that any one of the wives of a polygamist 
husband, as in the case of an adulterous husband, is entirely 
within her rights by the Christian rules, if she claims separa- 
tion from her husband. The fact is present that, under what- 
soever sanction of law, he continues his relations with other 


Practical 
conclusions 
on the 
whole 
survey. 


588 HOLY MATRIMONY 


women. If, then, on this ground, the wife effect a separation 
prior to baptism, there is no indissoluble bond to hinder her 
from marrying again; but if the converted wife desires to 
abide with her husband, the question whether she is at liberty 
to do so is one of the gravest difficulty. Neither Holy Scrip- 
ture nor the Church of the first fifteen centuries of Chris- 
tianity has any indications as to the particular case. There 
appears indeed to be little question that a wife who was 
married while not yet a Christian, to one who might either 
divorce her, or constrain her to share her wifely rights with 
others, was not debarred under those circumstances from con- 
tinuing her union as Christian marriage under the Pauline 
privilege. Taking this as a premise, it would seem to follow 
that the wife of an actual polygamist might retain her union 
not less than the wife of a polygamist im posse. This is, in 
fact, the conclusion arrived at by the Lambeth Conference of 
1888. Yet, if this continuance of the relation is open to one 
wife, there appears to be no sufficient ground to deny the same 
right of continuance to two or more wives, and it must be 
owned that a Musulman husband with four Christian wives 
would somewhat startle Christian feeling. If the case be 
admissible, it must be because a special sanctifying grace is 
supplied, which renders the man sanctified to each of the 
women in all her relations with him as his wife. This, of 
course, would not imply that in his own hfe and conversation 
the man would shew forth sanctity. 

The difficult questions which surround the subject οἵ 
marriages between the baptized and the unbaptized have in 
this chapter been referred to the three great sources of all 
theology ; viz., (1) Holy Scripture, (2) the testimony of History, 
and (3) Reason. It may be of service to close the chapter 
with a brief recapitulation of the practical conclusions to 
which the investigation has seemed to lead. 


REMARRIAGE OF CONVERTS AND MIXED MARRIAGES 589 


CONCLUSIONS. 


. All marriages contracted between Christians and non- 


Christians are essentially null and void. 


. Marriages contracted outside Christianity are not essentially 


andrssoluble. 


. A married convert to Christianity may continue a union 


entered upon by him while not a Christian, unless the non- 
Christian partner act in such a way as to call for 
separation. 


. The non-Christian partner acts so as to call for separation 


when 

(a) He refuses to abide with the converted partner, or 

(6) He refuses to abide without obtruding grave 
obstacles of a religious character (= “blasphemy 
of the Divine name”), or 

(c) He refuses to abide without obtruding grave 
obstacles of a moral character (=“solicitations 
to mortal sin”). 


. If the unbelrever be thus the cause of separation, the marriage 


may be dissolved with the effect that the converted partner 
may marry again. 


. If the unbeliever be willing to abide without attempting to 


cause spiritual or moral injury, the converted partner is 
under an obligation to continue the union; but this 
obligation is rather derived from the Divine readiness to 
grant a special grace of sanctification for the continuance 
of the union, than from the essentially indissoluble character 
of such union. 


. Since the right to dissolve a marriage contracted outside 


Christianity 18 ultimately based wpon the dissoluble character 
of such marriages, the expression of the will of the un- 
believing partner, if he be not accessible, may be dispensed 
with, 


. Lf the unbelieving partner be accessible, every reasonable effort 


should be made to obtain from him a sufficient expression of 
his will before the converted partner is permitted to proceed 
to a second marriage. 


590 HOLY MATRIMONY 


9. The converted partner who continues his union after baptism 
continues it as being to him Christian marriage, and there- 
Sore wndissoluble. 

10. When a marriage has been thus continued after the baptism 
of the converted partner, subsequent desertion by the non- 
Christian partner does not terminate the obligation which 
binds the Christian partner, but only gives occasion for 
separation of life. 

11. When the unbeliever causes separation at or before the baptism 
of the believer, the indissoluble obligation never exists, and 
both parties are free to marry again from the time of such 
separation. 

12. The permission to continue unions commenced outside 
Christianity can only be held to apply to the higher forms 
of such unions ; 6.0. 

(a) A Christian man may not continue a union with 
a polyandrous woman. 

(b) Temporary marriages may not be continued as 
such. 

13. The permission to continue unions commenced outside 
Christianity may be taken to hold good in some cases, 
where there is notwithstanding no obligation laid upon the 
Christian partner to continue such union ; eg. 

(a) Wwves of adulterous husbands may elect to continue 
the union after their baptism, or they may leave 
their husbands and marry again. 

(ὁ) Wives of polygamist husbands are similarly at 
liberty to leave their husbands and marry again, 
and, according to some authorities, are also at 
liberty to.continue the union. 


ΑΙ sce ἼΕΧΙ 
OF POLYGAMY 


HE present generation has been witness of a controversy Intro- 
in the Anglican Church as to whether it may not be {Roy 

lawful to admit polygamists to Christian baptism without 
requiring them to forego the practice of polygamy. In the 
light of our long investigatioa into the questions of divorce 
and remarriage such a controversy seems now to be super- 
fluous. If the adultery of the man is fair ground for putting Polygamy 
him away, and if the guilty husband so put away may not "aims 
even remarry, what becomes of polygamy considered as a Christians. 
practice permissible to Christians? Polygamy in the Christian 
man is simply a form of adultery, rendering the offender liable 
to be put away by his lawful wife; and even if so put away, 
he is unable to continue by the Church’s sanction the quasi- 
conjugal relations into which he has entered with any other 
woman or women. It is not contended by any that a similar 
concession to that proposed would be possible in the case of 
female converts from polyandrous tribes in India and else- 
where, and yet it may not unfairly be asked why, if charity 
require it in the one case, the voice of charity may not be 
heard in the other? ‘True, the monstrosity of the confusio 
prolis is greater than the monstrosity of the harem; but by 
either polygamy the sacred unity of the tie, as restored among 
Christians, is violated; and if charity is to avail to cast down 
the walls of the sanctuary in the one case, what is to hinder 
the claims of charity in the other ? 

In former chapters it was seen (1) how marriage as insti- 
tuted in the time of man’s innocency was monogamous, and 


Polygamy 
had been 
suffered in 
a fallen 
state 
without 
added con- 
demnation. 


Successive, 
not con- 
current, 
marriages. 


592 HOLY MATRIMONY 


(2) how, after the Fall, the practice of polygamy, like some 
other deflections from the Divine law, was tolerated without 
any addition of reprobation to that which was written in 
man’s heart and contained in his traditions. Man was in a 
state of sin, and his heart was hard. He was too without the 
erace which Gop gives to His reconciled children for the 
maintenance of the high requirements of Holy Marriage, and 
accordingly Gop suffered the practice of polygamy, neither 
approving it nor adding to existing condemnations. Mono- 
gamy would not render the marriage of the fallen Holy 
Matrimony, and pending the restoration of Holy Matrimony 
deflections of less degradation were suffered rather than de- 
flections of more degradation. 


I. Houy SCRIPTURE. 


It will be fitting, in the first place, to ask whether Holy 
Scripture has any indications that the practice of polygamy 
is permissible to Christians. The answer appears to be that 
the subject is nowhere directly treated in the New Testament, 
but as certain passages are cited in the controversy, it is well 


to consider them. 


(i.) 1 3. Timothy iii. 2: 


δεῖ οὖν τὸν ἐπίσκοπον ἀνεπίληπτον A bishop then must be blameless, 
εἶναι, μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα, νηφάλεον, the husband of one wife, vigilant, 
σώφρονα, κόσμιον, φιλόξενον, διδακτικόν: sober, of good behaviour, given to 


hospitality, apt to teach. 


This passage has been sometimes held to bear on the ques- 
tion of concurrent polygamy. If, indeed, it could be taken 
to mean that a bishop was only to be the husband of one wife 
at one time, it would doubtless have the greatest weight in the 
present argument. As Dr. Pusey remarks: “A rule which 
forbade to bishops only to have one wife at once, would, in 
itself, allow other Christians to have more, contrary to the 
original institution of marriage, and our Lord’s express words.” 
“To enact a positive law for a particular class does imply that 
the rest are free from that law.” But is there any evidence 
which can reasonably be adduced in support of the proposition 
that what is here meant is that the bishop is not to be a 


POLYGAMY 593 


polygamist? If we examine the context it appears obvious 
that the requirement that a bishop should be the “husband of 
one wife” (μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα) corresponds with the similar 
requirement in verse 9 that a widow on the church roll should 
have been the wife of one husband (ἑνὸς ἀνδρὸς γυνή). “They 
are the exact counterpart of each other.”! As there was no 
polyandry known in the Roman Empire, or among the Jews, 
the phrase “the wife of one husband” can only be used of a 
woman who had been married to but one husband in all. In 
correspondence with this meaning the phrase the “husband of 
one wife” must be used of a man who has been married to but 
one wife in all. The word γεγονυῖα used of the widow simply 
denotes that her condition of marriage with one husband has 
come to an end by the husband’s death.” 

There is no room for contention as to the interpretation 
placed on the passage by the discipline of the Church. In 
Kast and West alike it was the rule, a rule commonly based 
upon this text, that those who had been married twice in suc- 
cession since their baptism should be ineligible for ordination 
to the priesthood. How entirely the rule would accord with 
the general feeling on the subject of second marriage, we shall 
presently be in a position to judge. Again, the comments of 
ecclesiastical writers on the text we are now considering are 
nearly unanimous in understanding it to bar two successive 
marriages. It is not within the scope of this treatise to follow 
to its sources the subject of clerical digamy, which rather 
belongs to the accidentals of Holy Orders than to the essentials 
of Holy Matrimony.? It will be sufficient to notice here that 
in the first five centuries of Christian literature only two 
writers, one of the fourth, the other rather of the fifth century, 
appear to have adopted the view that the apostle is in the text 
cuarding against concurrent polygamy. Of these two writers 
one is the heretical Theodore of Mopsuestia, who attacked the 
practice of the Church in barring the priesthood to the twice- 


1 Dr. Pusey, note N. to Tertullian in the Library of the Fathers (p. 420). 

2 Ibid. 

3 Dr. Pusey’s note already cited is most valuable on this subject. See also 
Dr. von Dollinger, Hippolytus and Callistus, ch. 111. 


2 Q 


594. HOLY MATRIMONY 


married, and was accordingly anxious to remove the significance 
of the present text; while the other is Theodoret, who is 
honoured indeed as a father of the Church, but who had to 
defend himself for consecrating a digamist, one Count Irenaeus, 
to be Bishop of Tyre. Nor is any attempt made by either of 
these writers to support the view they uphold, by adducing any 
instance of polygamy among Christians. They refer simply to 
the obvious sufferance of polygamy by the Mosaic code. 

Summing up then as to the view that the text before us 
guards against polygamy in the case of the clergy, we note (1) 
that this interpretation is at variance with the analogies of the 
context, (2) that it is at variance with the discipline, excluding 
digamists from the priesthood, which was universal in the early 
centuries, and which is in fact the authoritative interpretation 
of the passage by the Church, and (3) that it is at variance 
with the overwhelming consensus of early Christian writers on 
the subject. 

We accordingly reject the interpretation, and with it the 
inference which is involved in it, that polygamy was allowed 
to the lay people. 


(ii.) 1 Corinthians vu. 2: 


Διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ Nevertheless, to avoid fornica- 
γυναῖκα ἐχέτω, Kal ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον dvdpa tion, let every man have his own 
ἐχέτω. wife, and let every woman have 

her own husband. 

(111.) S. Matthew xix. 5: 

καὶ εἶπεν, “Evexev τούτου καταλείψει And said, For this cause shall a 


ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ man leave father and mother, and 
προσκολληθήσεται πὴ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ shall cleave to his wife: and they 
ἔσονται οἱ δύο eis σάρκα μίαν; ὥστε οὐκέτι twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore 


εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ σὰρξ μία. they are no more twain, but one 
flesh. 
(iv.) Ephesians v. 23: 
Ὅτι ὁ ἀνήρ ἐστι κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικὸς, For the husband is the head of 
ws καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας. the wife, even as Christ is the 


head of the church. 


These three passages certainly exclude all thought of ° 
polygamy. That every woman should have her own husband, 
that twain should be one flesh, that the husband is the head of 
the wife, as Christ is the head of the one Church, are state- 
ments which do not travel outside monogamy. But they 


POLYGAMY 595 


hardly amount to argument on the point, as they are general 
statements, not directly concerned with polygamy, a practice 
for which no one among Christians would claim more than 
exceptional sufferance. ; 

On the whole we conclude that the New Testament scriptures 
are silent, so far as direct references are concerned, on the 
subject of concurrent polygamy. 


II. THE CHURCH IN HISTORY. 


In the Christian Church polygamy has never yet found aThe _ 
foothold. The reasons are not far to seek. Of these (a) the Hees 
first may be said to be that the Church of the early ages was 
hardly ever seriously confronted with polygamy, and (6) the 
second, that the question was entirely answered by implication 
in the received teaching on the subjects (a) of adultery and 
divorce, and (8) of second marriages. 

(a) Of the two systems of non-Christian law with which the The Early 
early Church had chiefly to reckon in the matter of marriage, east 
the Roman law, it need hardly be said, was entirely free from με μ  δεν-. 
the recognition of polygamy. It is not indeed to be thence 
inferred that the moral condition of the Roman Empire was 
better than that of the Chosen People. It is unnecessary to Roman law 
stain these pages with any detailed references to the awful pice 
moral degradation of at least some of the populations under Suara, 
Roman government in the time of the empire. Perhaps, if we prions 
knew all, we might be able to say that the toleration accorded 
to the Jews in the matter of polygamy would have been safer 
for the populations under Roman sway; and at least the 
Mosaic regulation of the connexion with slave women was far 
and away more righteous than the contuberniwm of Rome. But 
whatever the moral aspect may have been, the Roman law and 
the Roman customs were alike intolerant of any approach to 
polygamy. Divorce, promiscuous indulgence, unnatural sin 
abounded; but polygamy there was none. The Roman law 
recognised the concubinage of a man with a free woman of 
inferior position, understanding by concubinage a sort of left- 
handed marriage, which was avowedly terminable; but it did 
not even permit this concubinage concurrently with marriage, 

2Q 2 


Jewish 
practice. 


596 HOLY MATRIMONY 


nor might a man entertain two legal concubines at the same 
time.! While therefore the subject of divorce was continually 
bringing Christian teaching into conflict with the secular law, 
the question of polygamy never arose. Whatsoever the rela- 
tions which a Roman subject might have entered into, there 
was for him no law, human or Divine, which permitted him to 
keep two women as in any sense his wives at one and the same 
time. 

Authorities for these statements may be referred to. As 
regards the non-recognition of polygamy in general by the 
Roman law, an enactment of Diocletian and Maximian (A.D. 
285) recites, “That no one, who lives under the empire of the 
toman name, can have two wives, is plain to all; in that even 
in the edict of the praetor such men are marked with infamy ; 
and this matter the competent judge will not allow to go un- 
punished.”2 So too a law of Valerian and his colleagues (A.D. 
258), “Him who had two wives at once, without doubt infamy 
accompanies.”? That this was the old law of Rome may be 
farther inferred from the fact which Suetonius mentions, that 
it was in contemplation to pass a law permitting a plurality of 
wives to Julius Caesar; a law which would not have been 
needed if bigamy could otherwise have been legalised. 

S. Augustine may suffice as a witness that the Christians 
understood and accepted this law. In the De bono Conjugalr 
he remarks, “ Yea, in our times, and by the custom of Rome, 
neither is it allowed to take one wife to another, so as to have 
more than one alive.”® 

The practice of the Jews in the matter of polygamy during 
the early centuries of the Christian Church is, as has been 
already noticed, a somewhat obscure subject. While the 





1yPaunl Sento 2910-1 (τοις τὰν Ὅς, αἷς 

? Code ν. 5.2. Neminem, qui sub ditione sit Romani nominis, binas uxores 
habere posse, vulgo patet, quum et in edicto praetoris hujusmodi viri infamia 
notati sunt. Quam rem competens judex inultam esse non patietur. 

3 Code ix. 9. 18. Eum, qui duas simul habuit uxores, sine dubitatione 
comitatur infamia. 

4 Suetonius, Jul. ὁ. 52. 

> §. Augustine, De Bono Conjugali, § 7; nostris quidem jam temporibus ac 
more Romano, nec superducere, ut amplius habeat quam unam vivam, 


POLYGAMY 597 


recognised commentaries of the Jews never ceased to repeat 
provisions for the practice of polygamy, the actual customs of 
the Jewish people at the time of our Lord, and in the early 
centuries of Christianity, seem to have been hardly touched by 
it. It is not referred to in the Gospels as an existing custom. 
Josephus! indeed tells us of the polygamy of Herod the Great, 
who had nine wives, but the case may well have been ex- 
ceptional; and Justyn Martyr, while upbraiding the rabbis for 
permitting a man to have four or five wives, does not necessarily 
imply that he had any knowledge of polygamy as a practice.’ 
The early centuries of Christianity appear to have no one 
instance in which the case of a polygamous convert is treated, 
either in the decree of a council or in the writings of a 
Christian doctor. The Council of Elberis (between A.p. 306 
and 924) concerns itself on several points with the relations of 
Christians to the large Jewish population which was at that 
time to be found in Spain, but nowhere does it touch upon the 
subject of polygamy. 


(ὁ) The answer by wvnplication in the recewved teaching of the 
Church. 


(a) Inferences from the recognised teaching as to adultery and Sheer 


divorce. from 


é ᾿ a Ne recognised 
The teaching of Holy Scripture and of Christian tradition teaching 


on the subject of polygamy is necessarily contained in the ne 
teaching which comes to us from these sources on the subject va ne 
of adultery and divorce. 

When our Lord said, “ Whosoever shall put away his wife = Ἐν τὴν 
and marry another, committeth adultery against her,’* it is Peat i 
clear that the guilt of adultery against the wife would be as a wife. 
much incurred by the husband if he retained both women as if 
he put away the first, although indeed it might be said that by 
retaining the first wife he was at least not the cause of adultery 


on her part. The conception of adultery as possible against a 


—s4— 





1 Josephus, Antig. Jud. xvii. 1. ὃ. 


* S. Justin Martyr, Dialogus, Pars 11. 363. ... Tots ἀσυνέτοις καὶ τυφλοῖς 
διδασκάλοις ὑμῶν" οἵτινες μέχρι viv Kal τέσσαρας καὶ πέντε ἔχειν ὑμᾶς γυναῖκας 
ἕκαστον συγχωροῦσι. ΠΣ ΠῚ 


Hermas. 


S. Justin 
Martyr. 


S. Clement 


of 


Alexandria. 


Tertullian. 


The 47th 


Apostolical 


Canon, 


598 HOLY MATRIMONY 


woman is unknown to all polygamous codes of law. They are 
agreed in understanding that adultery on the part of a man is 
sin with the wife of another man, and that its adulterous 
character does not belong to it either as against the offender’s 
own wife, or even as against the partner of his sin. Both the 
cuilty parties are regarded as committing adultery against the 
husband whose property the sinful woman is. The statement 
of our Lord in 8. Mark x. that a man can commit adultery 
against his wife (ἐπ᾿ αὐτήν) is thus itself exclusive of polygamy. 

When Hermas says of the husband who has put away his 
wife for fornication, “For this cause it is commanded to you 
both to abide single, both husband and wife (ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῖς μένειν, 
εἴτε ἀνὴρ εἴτε γυνή); because that in such a ease there may be 
penitence,” a plurality of wives is not conceived as possible.? 

S. Justin Martyr, when quoting our Lord’s teaching on the 
subject of adultery and divorce, draws this very inference from 
it. “So then both they who under some human law contract 
bigamy are sinners in the account of our Teacher, and they 
who look on a woman to lust after her.’ 

S. Clement of Alexandria no less certainly excludes polygamy 
when he says, “It 1s expressly enacted, ‘Thou shall not put 
away a wife except for some matter of uncleanness’; and it is 
counted adultery to contract another marriage in the lifetime 
of either of the separated parties.’ 

Tertullian’s teaching on adultery and divorce involves the 
same conclusions as regards polygamy.* In the case of 
Tertulhan his passionate antagonism to second marriages in 
any shape provides in addition a considerable body of testimony 
against polygamy, which will be presently alluded to, though 
doubtless his heterodox attitude goes far to discredit his 
testimony altogether. 

When the 47th Apostolical Canon cuts off from communion 
any layman who, “having cast out his own wife, takes another,”. 





1 Hermas, Pastor, Mandatum iv. (Funk, Patres Apostolici, 1887, p. 392.) 

2 §. Justin Martyr, Apologia Prima pro Christiants, § 14, 15. (Migne’s Ed. 
pp. 348, 349.) 

3 §. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ii. 23. (Migne’s Ed. p. 1096.) 

4 Tertullian, De Monogamia, § 9; Ad Murcionem, lib. iv. ὁ. 34, lib. v. ¢. 7; 
De Patientia, § 12. 


POLYGAMY 599 


the possibility of his having two wives at once must be con- 
sidered to be not only passed by, but excluded.? 

We have seen that the Canons of Eliberis decree that Council of 
communion is not to be accorded even at the last to a Christian ΤῊΝ 
woman who has married a catechumen, “if the person marrying 
her be one who has forsaken a blameless wife, and if she was 
aware of his having a wife whom he hath forsaken without 
cause.” Here too union with two wives at once is necessarily 
excluded by implication.’ 

We: have thus glanced at the teaching of the principal 
authorities prior to Constantine. In excluding remarriage 
after divorce they a fortiori exclude polygamy. The same 
inference may be obviously drawn in the case of similar 
testimony throughout the history of the Church. It should 
be noticed, however, that while polygamy is necessarily 
excluded by those authorities which forbid remarriage after 
divorce for adultery, the authorities which would admit such 
remarriage are no less pronounced in the expression of opinions 
which leave no room for a plurality of wives. 

Thus Lactantius: “As the woman is tied by the bonds of Lactantius. 
chastity to desire no other, so let the man be holden by the 
same law, since Gop hath firmly bound the husband and wife 
in the frame of one body.”? 

So 8. Asterius, inveighing against the license of divorce, says S.Asterius. 
that “the law of continence is enacted of Gop, not for women 
only, but for men as well: although they, abiding by human 
lawgivers, who give them leave to be impure, are severe judges 
and exactors of female chastity, while themselves, with all 
shamelessness, run wild after many women.’ To “run wild 
after many women” is the nefas horrendwm which condemns 
the Roman license of divorce. Such license of divorce is 
monstrous, for it amounts to polygamy.* 

S. Epiphanius, in admitting remarriage after divorce for 5. Epi- 
adultery, expressly guards himself against being understood to Phas 
sanction bigamy. “Not for him to have two wives at once, 


1 Mansi, tom. i. p. 40. 2 Tbid. tom, 11: Ὁ. 7. 
3 Lactantius, Hpitome, c. lxvi. (alias, ὁ. viii.) (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1080.) 
4S. Asterius, Homily v. on S. Matthew xix. (Migne’s Ed. p. 237.) 


Ambro- 
siaster. 


(8) 
Inferences 
from the 
recognised 
teaching as 
to second 
marriages. 


600 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the first yet surviving; but if he be cut off from the first, and 
if (so it chanced) he be lawfully married to a second, him the 
holy Word compassionates, and the holy Church of Gop.”? 

Ambrosiaster, in maintaining the right of remarriage in the 
case of a convert whose non-Christian partner has refused to 
abide, says: “For the affront to the Creator (contumelia 
Creatoris) dissolves the right (jus) of marriage as regards him 
who is left, so that he is not open to accusation, though he be 
united to another.’ Except, then, for a sufficient cause, he 
would be open to accusation if he were united to another.” 

In fine nearly the whole of the testimony which can be 
adduced in the matter of adultery and divorce will be found to 
have a bearing on the subject of polygamy, and on this subject 
it is entirely unanimous. 


(3) Inferences from the recognised teaching as to second 
Marriages. 

The sense of the early Church on the subject of polygamy 
is not less obviously to be found in the current teaching on the 
subject of successive marriages. That teaching is remarkable 
as being continually characterised by what seems in the present 
day an extraordinary rigorism. There was a constant tendency 
in the direction of pronouncing second marriages sinful, a 
tendency which took dogmatic shape in the teaching of the 
African Montanists and the Phrygian Novatians. The orthodox 
writers, while maintaining Christian liberty in the matter, 
seern to have been anxious to guard against any appearance of 
unholy laxity. The result for our present purpose is that a 
succession of authorities are found to have expressed themselves 
in terms which are simply incompatible either with the per- 
mission of polygamy to Christians, or with the admission of 
converts while maintaining polygamous relations. 

The subject of successive marriages does not for its own sake 
come within the scope of this treatise, which is concerned only 
with the Divine laws of marriage. As second marriages are 
now permitted by the consent of the universal Church, and 





1S. Epiphanius, Panarion, lix. cap. 4. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. pp. 1024-5.) 
* Ambrosiaster, Jn Hpist. 1 Cor. vii. 18. (Migne’s Ed. of S. Ambrose, tom. ii 


25D 21 Se) 


POLYGAMY 601 


the restrictions on third and fourth marriages in the Eastern 
Church must be held to have only the character of ecclesias- 
tical regulations, there can hardly be said to be now any 
serious question as to the lawfulness of successive marriages, 
considered only from the point of view of the Divine prohibi- 
tion. The authorities here cited are therefore cited only on 
account of their bearing on the subject of polygamy in the 
Christian Church. 


AUTHORITIES ON SUCCESSIVE MARRIAGES. 
HERMAS. 
The Shepherd, Mand. iv.! 

"Hpotnca αὐτὸν πάλιν λέγων: Κύριε, ἐπεὶ ἅπαξ ἀνέχῃ pov, ἔτι μοι 
καὶ τοῦτο δήλωσον. Λέγε, φησίν. “Kav γυνή, φημί, κύριε, ἢ πάλιν 
ἀνήρ τις κοιμηθῇ καὶ γαμήσῃ τις ἐξ αὐτῶν, μήτι ἁμαρτάνει ὁ γαμῶν ; 
Οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει, φησίν" ἐὰν δὲ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῴ μείνῃ τις, περισσοτέραν ἑαυτῷ 
τιμὴν καὶ μεγάλην δόξαν περιποιεῖται πρὸς τὸν κύριον: ἐὰν δὲ καὶ 
γαμήσῃ, οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει. 'ήρει οὖν τὴν ἁγνείαν καὶ τὴν σεμνότητα καὶ 
ζήσῃ τῷ θεῷ. 

ATHENAGORAS. 
See p. 180. 


S. IRenaEvs. 
Against Heresies, Bk. 111. c. 17.? 
Miserante Domino nostro Samaritanae illi praevaricatrici, quae in 
uno viro non mansit, sed fornicata est in multis nuptiis. 


S. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
Stromata, 111. 1.5 
Ἡμεῖς εὐνουχίαν μὲν, καὶ οἷς τοῦτο δεδώρηται ὑπὸ Θεοῦ μακαρίζομεν" 
μονογαμίαν δὲ καὶ τὴν περὶ τὸν ἕνα γάμον σεμνότητα θαυμάζομεν" 
συμπάσχειν δὲ δεῖν λέγοντες, καὶ ἀλλήλων τὰ βάρη βαστάξειν: μή 
ie ἴω “ ¢ , Ν b ee Ig \ ἊΣ ἴω, Ἂ 
ποτέ τις δοκῶν καλῶς ἑστάναι, καὶ αὐτὸς πέσῃ. ]ερὶ δὲ τοῦ δευτέρου 


γάμου, Ki πυροῖ, φησὶν ὁ ᾿Απόστολος, γάμησον. 


Stromata, 1. 12.4 
tA A? ε 3 Ὧν 2X \ ἧς ᾿ x if 3 3 / oy 
α O αὐτὸς ανΉρ και κυριος, παλαιὰ καινίζων, ου πολυγαμίαν ετι 


/ Ν 


συγχωρεῖ" (τότε γὰρ ἀπήτει ὁ Θεὸς, ὅτε αὐξάνεσθαι καὶ πληθύνειν 





1 Funk, Patres Apostolici (1887) i. 398. 2 Migne’s Ed. p. 930. 
3 Ibid, tom. i, p. 1104. 4 Lbid. tom. i. p. 1184. 


602 HOLY MATRIMONY 


5 nw , x > h Ν , Ν Ν la) ” 
ἐχρῆν) povoyapiav δὲ εἰσάγει διὰ παιδοποιίαν καὶ τὴν TOU οἴκου 
κηδεμονίαν, εἰς ἣν βοηθὸς ἐδόθη ἡ γυνή" καὶ εἴ τινι ὁ ᾿Απόστολος -6v’ 
ἀκρασίαν καὶ πύρωσιν κατὰ συγγνώμην δευτέρου μεταδίδωσι γάμου" 
5 Ν Ν Ὁ 3 > ἂν εἶ Ἂν / 5 \ / 
ἐπεὶ καὶ οὗτος οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει μὲν κατὰ Διαθήκην (οὐ γὰρ κεκώλυται 

᾿ς “ dg > la Ν lal Ν \ > ig / Ἂν 
πρὸς τοῦ νόμου) οὐ πληροῖ δὲ τῆς κατὰ τὸ KvayyeAvov πολιτείας τὴν 

ἥν ᾽ 7 ᾿ / \ > ἘΞ > / lal id > 5) 
Kat’ ἐπίτασιν τελειότητα δόξαν δὲ αὐτῷ οὐράνιαν περιποιεῖ μείνας ἐφ 
ἑαυτοῦ. καὶ τὴν διαλυθεῖ θανά ζυγίαν ἃ φυλά ὶ 

, nv διαλυθεῖσαν θανάτῳ συζυγίαν ἄχραντον φυλάσσων, Kat 
τῇ οἰκονομίᾳ πειθόμενος εὐαρέστως, καθ᾽ ἣν ἀπερίσπαστος τῆς τοῦ 
κυρίου γέγονε λειτουργείας. 
TERTULLIAN. 
De Monogamia, cap. 4.1 


Hoc ipsum demonstratur a nobis, neque novam, neque extraneam 
esse Monogamiae disciplinam, imo et antiquam et propriam Christian- 
orum, ut Paracletum restitutorem potuis sentias ejus quam institutorem. 
Quod pertineat ad Antiquitatem, quae potest antiquior forma proferri 
quam ipse census generis humani? Unam foeminam masculo Deus 
finxit, una costa ejus decerpta, et utique ex pluribus. Sed et in 
praefatione ipsius operis: Von est, inquit, bonum homini solum eum 
esse: faciamus adjutorium ili, Adjutores enim dixisset, si pluribus 
eum uxoribus destinasset. Adjecit et Legem de futuro. Siquidem 
prophetice dictum est; Ht erunt duo in unam carnem, non tres 
neque plures. Caeterum jam non duo si plures. Stetit lex. Denique 
perseveravit unio conjugii in auctoribus generis ad finem usque, non 
quia non erant foeminae aliae, sed quia ideo non erant, ne primitiae 
generis duplici matrimonio contaminarentur. Alioquin si Deus 
voluisset, esse potuissent: Certe de filiarum suarum numerositate 
sumpsisset, non minus ex ossibus et ex carne sua habens Evam, si 
hoe pie fieret. At ubi primum scelus, homicidium, in fratricidio 
dedicatum, tam dignum secundo loco scelus, non fuit, quam duae 
nuptiae. 

ORIGEN, 
Homily «vit. on 5. Luke. (Greek not extant.)? 

Nunc vero et secundae et tertiae et quartae nuptiae, ut de pluribus 
taceam, reperiuntur, et non ignoramus quod tale conjugium ejiciet 
nos de regno Dei. 


Puto enim monogamum, et virginem, et eum qui in castimonia 
perseverat, esse de Ecclesia Dei: cum vero qui sit digamus, licet 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 934. 2 Ibid. tom. iii, p. 1846, 


POLYGAMY | 603 


bonam habeat conversationem, et caeteris virtutibus polleat, tamen 
non esse de Ecclesia et de eo numero, qui non habent rugam aut 
maculam, aut aliquid istius modi; sed esse de secundo gradu, et de 
his qui invocant nomen Domini, et qui salvantur quidem in nomine 
Jesu Christi, nequaquam tamen coronantur ab eo. 


CouncIL OF NEOCAESAREA, 
Canon 3.1 
TE x “nw x ὰ ᾽ὔ a «ς Ν Ἃ Ν « 
ερι τῶν πλειστοις PA ISS TEPLTLTTOVTWYV, O μεν χρόνος σαφὴς Oo 


e ΄ τὸν ὁ Be 3 \ Nee 7 ἘΣΤῈ ks ΄ N / 
WPla [LEVOS 7) € ἀναστροφὴ και ἢ πιστις αὐτῶν σύυντεμνέει TOV χρόνον. 


Canon 7. 
Π - 9 ’ 4 ὃ ὁ \ ε ἴω θ % > \ Ξ 
Pee UTEpOV εις γάμοις LYAPLOUVTWV μὴ εστιασῦσαιΐι ετπτει μετανοιαν 
5 ant ant ΝᾺ 
QlLTOVUVTOS TOU διγάμου, τίς ἔσται 6 πρεσβύτερος, ὃ διὰ THS EG TLL EWS 


συγκατατιθέμενος τοῖς γάμοις. 


CouncIL oF ΑΙΝΟΥΒΑ. 
Canon 19. 


o lanl A 
σοι παρθενίαν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι, ἀθετοῦσι τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν, τὸν TOV 
διγάμων ὅρον ἐκπληρούτωσαν. 


Councit or ΝΊΟΑΒΑ. 
Canon 8.° 
Ν “ 5» M4 \ ε \ 7 
Ilept τῶν ὀνομαζόντων μὲν ἑαυτοὺς καθαρούς ποτε, προσερχομένων δὲ 
τῇ καθολικῇ καὶ ἀποστολικῃ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἔδοξε τῇ ἁγίᾳ καὶ μεγάλῃ 
/ ¢ (4 ¢ ox 
συνόδῳ, ὥστε χειροθετουμένους αὐτοὺς, μένειν οὕτως ἐν TH κλήρῳ. 
Ν / \ la) ἡ “ 5 ἊΝ > £ “ 
Πρὸ πάντων δὲ τοῦτο ὁμολογῆσαι αὐτοὺς ἐγγράφως προσήκει, ὅτι 
θή \ > x 07 a ”~ θ A \ 5 lay 
συνθήσονται Kat ἀκολουθήσουσι τοῖς τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς 


3 / / ᾿ 7) \ ΄ A 
ἐκκλησίας δόγμασι τουτέστι καὶ διγάμοις κοινωνεῖν. 


Councit or ΤΑΟΡΙΟΒΑ. 
Canon 1.3 
Περὶ τοῦ, δεῖν κατὰ τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικὸν κανόνα τοὺς ἐλευθέρως καὶ 
νομίμως συναφθέντας δευτέροις γάμοις, μὴ λαθρογαμίαν ποιήσαντας, 
ὀλίγου χρόνου παρελθόντος, καὶ σχολασάντων ταῖς προσευχαῖς καὶ 


΄, Ν th > A 
νηστείαις, κατὰ συγγνώμην ἀποδίδοσθαι αὐτοῖς τὴν κοινωνίαν ὡρίσαμην. 


- 





1 Mansi, tom. 11. p. 542. ; + Ihtd. p. 520: 
3 Ibid. p. 672, 4 Ibid. p. 563. 


604 HOLY MATRIMONY 


S. Bast. 
Epistle 188. To Amphilochius.+ 
Canon 4. 


\ / \ Ψ Ἂν > ᾷ sf , [2 Ν > . 
Περὶ τριγάμων καὶ πολυγάμων τὸν αὐτὸν ὥρισαν κανόνα, ὅν καὶ ἐπὶ 
lay ὃ 7 ᾿ 3. λό ae > Ων Ny x > X “ ὃ / LAA δὲ 
τῶν διγάμων, ἀναλόγως" ἐνιαυτὸν μὲν γὰρ ἐπὶ τῶν διγάμων, ἄλλοι δὲ 
δύο ἔτη. Τοὺς δὲ τριγάμους ἐν τρισὶ καὶ τέταρσι πολλάκις ἔτεσιν 
η ριγάμ p 
3 ἴω 3, 

ἀφορίζουσιν. ᾿Ονομάζουσι δὲ τὸ τοιοῦτον οὐκ ἔτι γάμον, ἀλλὰ πολυ- 
ζ “ \ Sr. , Ν \ ξ fe che! 
γαμίαν, μᾶλλον δὲ πορνείαν κεκολασμένην. Διὸ καὶ ὃ κυρίος Τῇ 
Σαμαρείτιδι πέντε ἄνδρας διαμειψάσῃ, “Ov νῦν, φησὶν, ἔχεις, οὐκ ἔστι 
σου ἀνήρ᾽ ὡς οὐκέτι ἀξίων ὄντων τῶν ὑπερεκπεσόντων τοῦ μέτρου τῆς 

΄ a an > \ ay nA “-“ Me 
διγαμίας τῷ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἢ τῆς γυναικὸς καλεῖσθαι προσρήματι. ΣΣυνή- 
\ / 3 Ν lal 7 7 3 / 5 
θειαν δὲ κατελάβομεν ἐπὶ τῶν τριγάμων πενταετίας ἀφορισμόν᾽ οὐκ 
ἀπὸ κανόνων, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν προειληφότων ἀκολουθίας. Δεῖ δὲ μὴ 
, > \ 5 7 ἴων 5 / 3 τ 5 72 3 \ 5 “ 
πάντη αὐτοὺς ἀπείργειν τῆς κκλησίας, ἀλλ᾽ ἀκροάσεως αὐτοὺς ἀξιοῦν 
ἐν δύο που ἔτεσιν ἢ τρισί: καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐπιτρέπειν συστήκειν μὲν, 
A Ἢ , n° ete τ ἀπ > ΄ ΄, 
τῆς δὲ κοινωνίας τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀπέχεσθαι, καὶ οὕτως ἐπιδειξαμένους καρπόν 


A A , = ; 
τινα μετανοίας ἀποκαθιστᾷν τῷ τόπῳ THS KOLVWVLGS, 


Epistle 199. To Amphilochius.? 
Canon 41. 
‘H ev Τὴ cla ἑαυτῆς ἐξουσίαν ἔχουσα ἀνδρὶ συνοικεῖν ἀνέγκλητο 
Utada cee ] Χ ρ γκλητος, 
εἰ μηδείς ἐστιν 0 διασπῶν τὸ συνοικέσιον᾽ τοῦ ᾿Αποστόλου εἰπόντος " 
᾿Εὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ, ἐλευθέρα ἐστὶν, ᾧ θέλει, γαμηθῆναι" μόνον ἐν 
κυρίῳ. 
Canon 50.° 
T ίας νόμος οὐκ ἔστιν. “Ὥστε νόμῳ ya τρί dK ἃ 
ριγαμίας νόμος Σ μῳ γάμος τρίτος οὐκ ἄγεται. 
ΨᾺ «ε «ε / lal > ε “ Ἃὦ 
Ta μέντοι τοιαῦτα ὡς ῥυπάσματα τῆς κκλησιάς ὁρῶμεν δημοσίαις δὲ 


/ >) id γ᾽ ς “~ > 7 Τὰ [2 / 
καταδίκαις OUX ὑποβάλλομεν, ως ΤΊ 5 AVELILEVYS πορνείας αιρβετωτέρα. 


Epistle 217. To Amphilochius. 
Canon 80. 
Τὴν δὲ πολυγαμίαν ot πατέρες ἀπεσιώπησαν, ὡς κτηνώδη Kal 
> / A ΄ a > , ε A \ iis 
παντελως ἀλλοτρίαν τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Ἡμῖν δὲ παρίσταται 
πλέον τι πορνείας εἶναι τὸ ἁμάρτημα. Διὸ ἔυλογον τοὺς τοιούτους 
ὑποβάλλεσθαι τοῖς κανόσι" δηλονότι ἐνιαυτὸν προσκλαύσαντας καὶ ἐν 


΄ ¢ τ 5 
τρισὶν ὑποπεσόντας OUTW O€KTOUS εἶναι. 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. Ὁ. 673. 2 [bids p. 729: 3 Ibid. p. 732. 


POLYGAMY 605 


S. Cyrin or JERUSALEM. 
Catechetical Lectures iv. ὁ. 26.1 
2 ΄ \ 
Kai of povoyapor δὲ, τοὺς δευτέρῳ γάμῳ συμπεριενεχθέντας μὴ 
> ΄ ς Ν Ν \ (og ΄ \ θ ΄ ᾿ 
ἀποδοκιμαζέτωσαν᾽ καλὸν μὲν γὰρ ἡ ἐγκράτεια καὶ θαυμάσιον" συγ- 
A A ε 
γνωστὸν δὲ καὶ τῷ δευτέρῳ γάμῳ προσελθεῖν, ἵνα μὴ πορνεύσωσιν οἱ 
ἀσθενεῖς. 
S. Grecory ΝΎΞΒΒΕΝ. 
Epistle 2. Of those who go (on pilgrimage) to Jerusalem.? 
ar 3 ΤΥ ἮΝ f « Ἁ Κ᾿ la « ΤΑ / 3 Ἂ 
πειτα εἰ καὶ ἦν πλέων ἡ χάρις ἐν τοῖς “Ιεροσόλυμα τόποις, οὐκ ἂν 
> TA lal a A “ ξε ε i [4] / b) ” 5 
ἐπεχωρίαζε τοῖς ἐκεῖ ζῶσιν ἡ ἁμαρτία. Νῦν μέν τοι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀκαθαρ- 
σίας εἶδος, ὃ μὴ τολμᾶται Tap’ αὐτοῖς. Kat πονηρίαι, καὶ μοιχεῖαι, καὶ 
κλοπαὶ, καὶ εἰδωλολατρεῖαι, καὶ φαρμακεῖαι, καὶ φθόνοι, καὶ φόνοι, καὶ 
μάλιστά γε τὸ τοιοῦτον ἐπιχωριάζει κακὸν, ὥστε μηδαμοῦ τοιαύτην 
ἑτοιμότητα εἶναι πρὸς τὸ φονεύειν, ὅσον ἐν τοῖς τόποις ἐκείνοις, θηρίων 
o~ ¢ “ “ / 
δίκην τῷ αἵματι TOV ὁμοφύλων ἐπιτρεχόντων ἀλλήλων, ψυχροῦ κέρδους 
χάριν. 
S. ΕΡΙΡΕΑΧΙΙΞΒ. 
Against Heresies, Bk. II. Haer. 48, c. 9.3 
Τὴν δὲ povoyapiav τιμᾷ, εἰ Kal μάλιστα τὰ χαρίσματα τῆς ἱερωσύνης 
διὰ τῶν ἀπὸ μονογαμίας ἐγκρατευσαμένων, καὶ τῶν ἐν παρθενίᾳ δια- 
τελούντων κοσμήσας προετύπου, ὡς καὶ οἱ αὐτοῦ ἀπόστολοι τὸν ἐκ- 
κλησιαστικὸν κανόνα τῆς ἱερωσύνης ἐυτάκτως καὶ ὁσίως διετάξαντο. 
> / \ 5 , > / \ \ Xie la ΣᾺ lal 
εἰ δέ τις κατὰ ἀσθένειαν ἐπιδεηθείη μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν τῆς ἰδίας γαμετῆς 
“ a) / , ’ 3 7 lal e \ “ 5 γ᾽ 
συναφθῆναι δευτέρῳ γάμῳ, οὐκ ἀπαγορεύει τοῦτο ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας, 
τούτεστιν τὸν μὴ ὄντα ἱερέάέ. Οὕτοι δὲ κωλύουσι κατὰ εἰρημένον, 
κωλυόντων γαμεῖν. “ExBadAAovor γὰρ τὸν δευτέρῳ γάμῳ συναφθέντα, 
καὶ ἀναγκάζουσι, μὴ δευτέρῳ γάμῳ συνάπτεσθαι" ἡμεῖς δὲ οὐκ ἀνάγκην 
> / 3 ἈΝ “ \ 7 5 lal / 
ἐπιτιθέαμεν" ἀλλὰ παραινοῦμεν μετὰ συμβουλίας ἀγαθῆς προτρεπόμενοι 
. ΄ > ey ef ΄ a \ , > \ > 
τὸν δυνάμενον, οὐκ ἀνάγκην δὲ ἐπιτιθέαμεν TH μὴ δυναμένῳ, ἀλλὰ οὐκ 


ἐκβάλλομεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς (wns. 


Bk. Il. Haer. 59.4 
"H€eorts δὲ TO λαῷ δι᾽ ἀσθένειαν διαβαστάξσθαι. καὶ μὴ δυνηθέντας 
ἱ t 5 μὴ 1) 
ἐπὶ TH πρώτῃ γαμετῇ στῆναι, δευτέρᾳ μετὰ θάνατον τῆς πρώτης συναφ- 
θῆναι. Καὶ ὁ μὲν μίαν ἐσχηχὼς ἐν ἐπαίνῳ μείζονι καὶ τιμῃ παρὰ πᾶσιν 
ἐεκκλησιαζομένοις ἐνυπάρχει: ὃ δὲ μὴ δυνηθεὶς τῇ μιᾷ ἀρκεσθῆναι 


¢ \ Zz A “ 
τελευτησάσῃ ἕνεκέν τινος προφάσεως, πορνείας ἢ μοιχείας, ἢ κακῆς 





1 Migne’s Ed. p. 488. 2 Ibid. tom. iii. p. 1012. 
3 Ibid. tom. i. p. 868, 4 Tbid. tom. ii. p. 1024. 


606 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Mee A “ / oe / Ν vn” 4, 
αἰτίας χωρισμοῦ γενομένου, συναφθέντα δευτέρᾳ γυναικὶ, ἢ γυνὴ 
δευτέρῳ ἀνδρὶ, οὐκ αἰτιᾶται ὁ θεῖος Adyos, οὐδὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Εκκλησίας καὶ 
τῆς ζωῆς ἀποκηρύττει, ἀλλὰ διαβαστάζξει διὰ τὸ ἀσθενές: οὐχ ἵνα δύο 


la > \ Ν » a » an an 
YvVatkas επι TO αὐτὸ σχῇ ἔτι περιούσης ΤῊΝ μιᾶς, ἀλλ ἀπὸ μιᾶς 


On 


ἀποσχεθεὶς, δευτέρᾳ, εἰ τύχοιεν, νόμῳ συναφθῆναι. ᾿᾿λεεῖ τοῦτον 


On 


ἅγιος λόγος καὶ ἡ ayia Θεοῦ ᾿Εκκλησία: μάλιστα εἰ τυγχάνει 


τοιοῦτος τὰ ἄλλα εὐλαβὴς, καὶ κατὰ νόμον Θεοῦ πολιτευόμενος. 


S. CHrysostTom. 
In illud, Vidua eligatur, ete. 
4“ Ss < \ ε 6 x ¢€ / δ {2 Ν 
Ὥσπερ οὖν καλὸν μὲν 0 γάμος, κρείσσων δὲ ἡ παρθενία: οὕτω καλὸν 
\ \ ς κα / VA Ν 3 “Ἂ 4 ~ ᾿ς / > 
μὲν καὶ ὁ δεύτερος γάμος, κρείσσων δὲ αὐτοῦ ὃ πρῶτος Kai μόνος. Οὐ 
τοίνυν ἐκβάλλομεν δεύτερον γάμον, οὐδὲ νομοθετοῦμεν ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ 


a“ 5 » » “~ 
παραινοῦμεν, εἴ τις δύναιτο σωφρονεῖν, ἐπὶ TH προτέρῳ μένειν. 


On 2 Timothy c. wi. Hom. VIT.? 

Αἱ γυναῖκες ἀκουέτωσαν (μάλιστα yap διὰ τοῦτο εἶπον πρὸς ἀπελ- 
θόντας) αἱ δευτέραις ὁμιλοῦσαι γάμοις, καὶ τὴν εὐνὴν διαφθείρουσαι TOV 
τετελευτηκότος, αἱ στέρξασαι τὸν πρότερον. Οὐκ ἀπαγορεύων τὸν 
δεύτερον γάμον, οὐδὲ ἀκόλαστον εἶναι λέγων, ταῦτά φημί: οὐ γὰρ ἀφίησί 

ε a ον > , a ΄ \ ΄ A \ 
με ὁ Παῦλος, χαλινὸν ἐπιτιθείς μου τῷ στόματι, καὶ λέγων ταῖς γυναιξὶν, 
"Hav δὲ καὶ γήμῃ, οὐχ ἥμαρτεν. ᾿Αλλ’ ἔδωμεν καὶ τὸ ἑξῆς: Μακαριωτέρα 


δέ ἐστιν, ἐὰν οὕτω μείνῃ: πολλῷ τοῦτο βέλτιον ἐκείνου. 


In Epistolam ad Titum, cap. 1. Hom. 11. 

Tivos ἕνεκεν καὶ τὸν τοιοῦτον εἰς μέσον παράγει" ᾿Επιστομίζει τοὺς 
ε \ \ ἣν | i / a A a Q “ 3 
αἱρετικοὺς τοὺς Tov γάμον διαβάλλοντας, δεικνὺς OTL TO πρᾶγμα οὐκ 
” » Ν » 5) a τ » ᾽ 5 A“ ia Niza x Ν 2 
ἔστιν ἐναγὲς, ἀλλ᾽ οὕτω τίμιον, ὡς μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ δύνασθαι καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἅγιον 
Φ ΓΔ 4 3 “Ὁ Ἂς x‘ Ἂς 2 A / Ν » 
ἀναβαίνειν θρόνον: ἐν ταυτῷ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀσελγεῖς κολάζων, καὶ οὐκ 
9 \ Ἂς » ὔ Ν > Ἂν Ψ' hd - ε Ν 
ἀφιεὶς μετὰ δευτέρου γάμου τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐγχειρίζεσθαι ταύτην. Ὃ γὰρ 

Ν. ἈΝ ε ἴω va 7 ” “A vA - , 
πρὸς τὴν ἀπελθοῦσαν μηδεμίαν φυλάξας εὔνοιαν, πῶς ἂν οὗτος γένοιτο 
προστάτης καλός ; τίνα δὲ οὐκ ἂν ὑποσταίη κατηγορίαν; ϊστε γὰρ 
εἶ mess ¢ 5 \ 7 \ A , . ΄ ε τ᾿ 
ἅπαντες, ἴστε ὅτι εἰ μὴ κεκώλυται παρὰ τῶν νόμων τὸ δευτέροις ὁμιλεῖν 


γάμοις, ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως πολλὰς ἔχει τὸ πρᾶγμα κατηγορίας. 


. S. JEROME. 
Ep. 79. To Salvina.* 


Et cur indulserit, statim subjecit: Jam quaedam declinaverunt post 
Satanam. Ex quo intelligimus, illum non stantibus coronam, sed 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. 111. p. 825, 2 Tbid. tom. xi. p. 641. 
* 761. tom, xi" p: 671, 4 Ibid. tom. i. p. 732. 


POLYGAMY 607 


jacentibus manum porrigere. Vide qualia sint secunda matrimonia, 
quae lupanaribus praeferuntur, guia declinaverunt quaedam post 
Satanam. Ideo adolescentula vidua, quae se non potest continere, 
vel non vult, maritum potius accipiat, quam diabolum. 


Epistle 128. To Ageruchia.+ 
Aliud est quod vult Apostolus: aliud quod cogitur velle. Ut 
concedat secunda matrimonia meae est incontinentiae, non illius 
voluntatis. Vult omnes esse sicut seipsum, ut ea cogitare quae Dei 
sunt, et solutos nequaquam ultra alligari. Sed si labentes, per 
incontinentiam ad barathrum stupri viderit pervenire; digamiae 
porrigit manum, ut cum una magis, quum cum pluribus volutentur. 


Ep. 41. To Marcella.? 


Nos secundas nuptias non tam appetimus, quam concedimus, Paulo 
jubente, ut viduae adolescentulae nubant: illi in tantum putant 
scelerata conjugia iterata, ut quicumque hoc fecerit, adulter habeatur. 


On the Epistle to Titus, c. 1.5 


Quod autem ait, unius uxorts vir, sic intelligere debemus: ut non 
omnem monogamum digamo putemus esse meliorem; sed quo is 
possit ad monogamiam et continentiam cohortari, qui sui exemplum 
praeferat in docendo. Esto quippe aliquem adolescentulum conjugem 
perdidisse, et carnis necessitate superatum, accepisse uxorem secundam, 
quam et ipsam statim amiserit, et deinceps vixerit continenter ; alium 
vero usque ad senectam habuisse matrimonium, et uxoris usum, ut 
plerique existimant felicitatem, nunquam a carnis opere cessasse : quis 
vobis e duobus videtur esse melior, pudicitior, continentior? Utique 
ille qui infelix etiam in secundo matrimonio fuit, et postea pudice, 
et sancte conversatus est, et non is qui ab uxoris amplexu nec senili 
est separatus aetate. Non sibi ergo applaudat, quicumque quasi 
monogamus eligitur, quod omni digamo sit melior, cum in eo magis 
sit electa felicitas, quam voluntas. 


S. AMBROSE. 
De viduts, c. xi.4 
Quod tamen pro consilio dicimus, non pro praecepto imperamus, 


provocantes potius viduam, quam ligantes; neque enim prohibemus 
secundas nuptias, sed non suademus. Alia est enim infirmitatis 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1050. 2 Ibid. tom. i. p. 475. 
3 Ibid. tom. vii. p. 564, 4 Ibid, tom. ii. p. 254, 


608 HOLY MATRIMONY 


contemplatio, alia gratia castitatis. Plus dico, non prohibemus 
secundas nuptias, sed non probamus saepe repetitas; neque enim 
expedit quidquid licet: Omnia mihi licent, dicit Apostolus, sed non 
omnia sunt utilia. Et vinum bibere licet, sed plurimum non decet. 


AMBROSIASTER. 
On the first Epistle to the Corinthians. ἢ 
Beatior autem erit, si ste permanserit, secundum meum consilium. 


Cum dicit superius, nwbat, lege loquitur naturali; quamquam a 
Deo primae nuptiae sint, secundae vero permissae sunt. Denique 
primae nuptiae sub  benedictione Dei celebrantur sublimiter: 
secundae autem etiam in praesenti carent gloria; concessae sunt 
autem propter incontinentiam: et quia solent viduarum juniores 
incurrere : ac per hoc concedit secundas. 


S. AUGUSTINE. 


De Bono Viduitatis, cap. iv.? 

. . Satis ostendit beatam esse in Domino etiam post mortem virl 
iterum nubentem fidelem, sed in eodem Domino viduam beatiorem : 
hoc est, ut Scripturarum non tantum verbis, verum etiam exemplis 
loquar, beatam esse Ruth, sed Annam beatiorem. Quapropter hoc 
primum oportet ut noveris, bono quod elegisti non damnari secundas 
nuptias, sed inferius honorari. Nam sicut bonum sanctae virginitatis, 
quod elegit fila tua, non damnat unas nuptias tuas; sic nec viduitas 
tua, cujusquam secundas. Hine enim maxime Cataphrygarum ac 
Novatianorum haereses tumuerunt, quas buccis sonantibus, non 
sapientibus, etiam Tertullanus inflavit, dum secundas nuptias tanquam 
illicitas maledico dente concidit, quas omnino licitas Apostolus sobria 
mente concedit. Ab hac sanitate doctrinae, nullius indocti, nullius 
docti disputatione movearis. 


StatutTa EccLesIAE ANTIQUA. ? 


Quaerendum etiam ab eo. . . 
Si nuptias non improbet, si secunda matrimonia non damnet. 





1 Migne’s 3. Ambrose, tom. ii. p. 226. 
2 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 433. 
3 In Ballerini’s 8. Leo. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 880.) 


POLYGAMY 609 


S. Ampuinocuius, Bishop of Iconium.! 
Oratio in Domini occursum. 
FC) Ff Gr ε \ / Q / Ὃς θ Ve ΄ 
VTWS κρίματος ἀξία, ἡ τὴν μνήμην συνθάψασα τῷ θεοζεύκτῳ συζύγῳ, 
καὶ μάλιστα τέκνου, ἢ τέκνων παρόντων" διὸ καὶ ὁ νόμος τοῦ γάμου 
πεφυτούργηται" εἰ δὲ μὴ πρόσεστι τῇ νέᾳ χήρᾳ τέκνον, εἰκὸς αὐτὴν ἐπὶ 
δεύτερον γάμον ὁρμᾶν τῷ ἔρωτι τῆς φιλοτεκνίας νυττομένην᾽ ἐπειδὰν καὶ 
τοῦτο παραινῶν ὁ μακάριος IlatAos ἔλεγεν: βούλομαι νεωτέρας χήρας 
γαμεῖν" 
SOoRATES. 
Ecclesiastical History, Bk. v. ο. 22.” 
ε \ « ss / / 5 te ε X > “~ 
Οἱ Ναυατιανοὶ ot περὶ Φρυγίαν, duyapous ov δέχονται. Ot δὲ ev τῇ 


Κωνσταντίνου πόλει, οὔτε φανερῶς δέχονται, οὔτε φανερῶς ἐκβάλλουσι. 


In the Shepherd of Hermas the question is asked whether a 
person who marries a second time after the death of the first 
partner sins by so doing. The reply is, “He sinneth not; but 
if any remain by himself he procureth to himself more 
abundant honour and great glory with the Lord; yet if he 
marry, he sinneth not.” Here then already, in the first or 
second century, we have an expression of the view which 
commended itself generally to the Church of the following 
three centuries, that it was lawful indeed to marry a second 
time, but that such second marriages were on a lower plane 
than first marriages, and rather permitted than approved. 


Hermas, 


In Athenagoras, as has been noticed elsewhere, we have the Athena- 
first example of a Christian writer who holds that second ®%** 


marriages are distinctly unlawful. To marry a second time is 
εὐπρεπὴς μοιχεία, reputable adultery. * 

S. Irenaeus, the venerated bishop of Lyons, is a _ truer 
representative of the mind of the Church of the second 
century. Yet even he does not scruple to say of the Samaritan 
woman with whom our Lord spoke at the well, that she “ did 
not remain in uno viro,”’ satisfied with one husband, “but was 
cuilty of fornication in many nuptials.” It may be indeed 


1 Opp. ed. Combefis. Paris, 1644. 

2 Migne’s Ed. p. 641. 

3 Hermas, Pastor, Mand. iv. (Funk, Patres Apostolici, i. 398.) 
* Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis, § 88. 


ey ΤῊ 


S. Clement 
of 
Alexandria. 


Tertullian. 


610 HOLY MATRIMONY 


that S. Irenaeus read the narrative as probably implying 
rather the recurrence of divorce and subsequent remarriage, 
than merely of marriage following death.’ 

S. Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 200) in the Stromata gives 
brief expression to what seems to have been the general view 
as to the three states of (1) single life, (2) monogamy, or 
marriage with one partner not followed by subsequent marriage 
with another partner, and (3) second marriage. ‘‘ We hold to 
be blessed the unmarried life, and those to whom this has been 
given by Gop; and we admire monogamy and the dignity 
(? chastity, σεμνότητα) which surrounds the single marriage, 
saying that it is necessary that there should be mutual 
sympathy and the bearing of one another’s burdens, lest at 
any time any thinking that he standeth bravely, even he 
should fall. But concerning second marriage, the apostle 
says, ‘If thou burn, marry.’”? 

In another place he says that the apostle “on account of 
incontinence and the burning (of concupiscence) concedes 
second marriage by way of indulgence.”? One who so marries 
does not indeed sin, but neither “does he fulfil the high- 
wrought (κατ᾽ éritacw—tfrom ἐπιτείνω to stretch out) perfection 
of the polity which is according to the gospel.” 

Tertullian is deplorably identified in this matter with the 
exaggerated views of the Montanists. To him only one 
marriage can ever be according to (ΟΠ ΒΒ holy ordinance. 
Second marriage is sin. A whole treatise, the De Monogamia, 
is devoted to the support of this view, which need hardly be 
further dwelt upon. The Church only knows it to condemn it. 
The treatise is cited in this place with a view to its bearing on 
polygamy, and it is sufficiently clear that neither the chary 
toleration accorded to second marriages by Hermas and 
S. Clement of Alexandria, nor the trenchant condemnation 
of Athenagoras and Tertullian, was likely to generate an 
atmosphere in which concurrent polygamy could find a place. 


1S. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. 111. ὁ. 17. (Migne’s Ed. p. 930.) 
2 §. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata iii. 1. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i, p. 1104.) 
3 Tbid. Stromata iii. 12. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1184.) 


POLYGAMY 611 


The words monogamia and polygamia as used by early The words 
Christian writers require attention. Monogamia is not with Bi 
Tertullian or with 8. Jerome what modern writers mean by polygamia. 
monogamy, that is to say, the restriction of conjugal relations 
to one partner at a time, but it is the restriction of such 
relations to one partner for the whole term of life. Conse- 
quently as antitheses of monogamus are bigamus,! the husband 
of two wives in succession, or ¢rigamus, the husband of three 
wives In succession. Beyond this marriages are classed under 
the general head of polygamy, polygamia, the marrying of 
many wives. LPolygamia is thus commonly used as the 
complete antithesis of monogamia ; it is the marrying of many 
wives in succession, as opposed to the being content with one 
marriage for the whole term of life. Sometimes, however, 
polygamia is used to denote marriages to many wives at one 
and the same time, according to the practice of Eastern 
nations; but in this sense monogamia does not appear to be 
its counterpart. Monogamia in Greek and Latin writers is a 
marriage which is not followed by any second marriage after 
the death of the first partner. 

Origen goes so far as to say that repeated marriage “ will origen. 
cast us out from the kingdom of Gop,” but he at once explains 
the sense in which he uses this expression. “For I think that 
a monogamist, and a virgin, and he who perseveres in chastity 
are of the Church of Gop (de ecclesia Dei); but that he who 
is a digamist, albeit his conversation be honest, and he excel 
in virtues other than chastity, is yet not of the Church and 
of the number of those who have not ‘spot or wrinkle or any 
such thing’; but that he is of the second degree (de secundo 
gradu), and of those who call upon the name of the Lord, and 
who are saved indeed in the name of Jesus Christ, yet are in 
no wise crowned by Him.”? 

The Council of Neocaesarea (0. A.D. 315), in its 3rd Canon, Council of 
says of those who have been several times married (πλείστοις Net 
γάμοις περιπιπτόντων) that the period of penitence assigned is 


1 Though bigamus is also used of offenders by concurrent bigamy. 
? Origen, Homily xvii. on S. Luke. 
282 


Council of 
Ancyra. 


Council of 
Nicaea. 


Council of 
Laodicea. 


S. Basil. 


612 HOLY MATRIMONY 


well known, but that the repentance and faith of such persons 
may avail to shorten the period.1_ In its 7th Canon the 
Council forbids a presbyter to take part in the marriage 
festivities of digamists. 

The Council of Ancyra (A.D. 314) has a remarkable Canon,” 
which lays down that persons who have promised virginity, 
and then put aside their promise (τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν), are to fulfil 
the term of penance assigned for digamists. 

The great Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), the first of the 
general councils, rules that of those “who call themselves 
Kathari (the Phrygian Novatians), when they come over to the 
Catholic and Apostolic Church,” the ordained are to be received 
among the clergy, but that “before all it is seemly that they 
should acknowledge this in writing, that they will observe and 
follow the decisions of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; 
that is to say, that they will communicate even with digamists.”% 

The 1st Canon of Laodicea (A.D. 341 ?) rules that second 
marriages may be condoned after a brief period of prayer and 
fasting.* 

The early Councils of the fourth century are thus agreed in 
regarding the permission to contract a second marriage as no 
better than a concession to infirmity. Those who avail them- 
selves of it are held to have no honour, and to be not even free 
from blame; so that a period of penance is exacted from them 
as the condition of their re-admission to communion. This is 
the deliberate practice of the fourth century; and it may be 
reasonably asked if, in the light of such views and of such a 
practice, it 1s possible even to suppose that polygamists should 
have been suffered in the Church, and never a word said. 

In the Canonical Letters of S. Basil there are several 
“Canons” bearing on the subject. Digamists, according to 
an earlier Canon quoted,® are penitents for the space of one 
year. In the case of trigamists the practice is stated to have 





1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 542. 

2? Canon 19. (Mansi, tom. ii. p. 520.) 
3 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 672. 

4 Ibid. Ὁ. 563, 

> One of the Apostolic Canons, 


POLYGAMY 613 


varied from two to five years of penitence. “They name such 
a connexion no longer marriage, but polygamy, or rather 
limited fornication.” 8. Basil is of opinion that it is not 
desirable to altogether exclude these trigamists from the 
Church while they are doing penance, that is to say, to class 
them among the Mourners outside the door, but rather that 
they should be held worthy of a place among the audientes for 
two or three years, and then pass a year among the consistentes. 
After that they would be restored to communion.! 

In Canon 41, following 8. Paul’s permission, he says a widow 
may marry without blame (avéy«AyTos).2 In Canon 50 he says 
that third marriages are outside law.? “We look upon such 
as the contaminations (ῥυπάσματα) of the Church; but we do 
not subject them to public condemnation, inasmuch as they are 
better than unrestricted fornication.” 

The 80th Canon of 8. Basil is one of much interest on the 
subject of polygamy. It has been constantly quoted as re- 
ferring to polygamy in the modern sense; that is to say, to 
marriage with several wives at the same time. The Canon runs 
as follows: “The Fathers passed by polygamy in silence as 
being brutal (κτηνώδη), and entirely foreign to the race of man. 
And to us it appears to be in some sort a greater sin than 
fornication. Wherefore it is reasonable that such should be 
subjected to the Canons; that is to say that, having been 
Mourners for one year, and substrate for three years, they 
should thus be receivable.’ 

Zonaras and Balsamon, the two most received commentators 
on the Canons in the Eastern Church, are agreed in under- 
standing that by polygamy S. Basil here refers to marriages 
beyond the third; so that a fourth or subsequent marriage 
comes under the head of polygamy. ‘This explanation fairly 
satisfies the difficulties of the Canon. The word polygamy can 
hardly here refer to trigamy, as the Benedictine editors sur- 
mise, although in the 4th Canon 8. Basil had spoken of third 


1S. Basil, Epist. 188, Canon 4. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 673.) 
2 Ibid. Epist. 199, Canon 41. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 729.) 

3 Ibid. Canon 50. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 782.) 

4 Ibid. Epist. 217, Canon 80. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 804.) 


S. Cyril of 
Jerusalem. 


614 HOLY MATRIMONY 


marriages as deserving the name of polygamy. In that Canon 
trigamy had already been dealt with, and in a much milder 
fashion than here. For trigamy two or three years were to be 
passed among the audzentes, and one among the consistentes. 
For polygamy one year is to be passed among the Mourners, 
three years among the substrati, and then the penitents are to 
be receivable (dexrovs), not, that is to say, to communion, but 
to the final year among the consistentes. The penance of 
polygamy therefore covered five years, of which four were 
spent in the two lowest grades. 

Hefele, in an interesting article, On Rigorism in the life and 
views of the ancient Christians, is inclined to understand the 
polygamy of the 80th Canon as polygamy in the modern sense, 
or the having several wives at one time.t But in view of the 
facts that (1) the Eastern Church has always understood 
S. Basil to be referring to successive polygamy, that (2) no 
single instance of concurrent polygamy has been adduced from 
any part of the Church, and (3) that bigamy following on 
desertion of the first wife is visited with seven years of 
penance in the 77th Canon, whereas the penance here assigned 
for polygamy is for five years only, it does not appear probable 
that many scholars will agree with Hefele in the matter. 

We conclude that S. Basil has nothing to say to polygamy 
in the modern sense, but, from his severe provisions for those 
who had contracted successive marriages, it may be inferred 
with moral certainty that concurrent polygamy would have 
been altogether abhorrent to him. Such polygamy would have 
been to him at least as bestial (κτηνώδη) as were repeated 
marriages. 

S. Cyril of Jerusalem is remarkable as representing the great 
mother church of Jewish Christianity, where, if anywhere, all 
permissible Jewish tradition would be respected, guarded, and 
maintained. Probably born in Jerusalem about A.D. 315, he 
exercised his ministry in the Holy City, first as presbyter, and 
afterwards as bishop. His Catechetical Lectures, by which he 
is best known, appear to have been delivered about a.p. 347, 


* Hefele, Ueber den Rigorismus in dem Leben und den Ansichten der alten 
Christen, in the Tiibing. Theol. Quartal-Schrift, 1841, pp. 375 sqq. 


POLYGAMY 615 


while he was yet a simple priest. In them he says that “the 
once married are not to despise those who are involved in 
second marriages, for continence is beautiful and admirable, 
but it 1s pardonable to proceed to second marriage, in order 
that the weak may not commit fornication.”! It does not 
appear, therefore, that 8. Cyril had any more indulgence even 
for the repetition of marriage than was the case with his 
contemporaries elsewhere. 

It is noteworthy that we have from the pen of 8. Gregory s. Gregory 
Nyssen a dark and painful description of the moral degradation N¥s*™ 
of the Christians of Jerusalem at the time of his visit to the 
Holy City, a visit which was made in answer to an appeal by 
Ὁ. Cyril to the Council of Antioch (A.D. 379) on the subject of 
the irregularities of his flock. 8. Gregory tells us that the 
city abounded in “ wickednesses, and adulteries, and thefts, and 
idolatries, and poisonings, and envies, and murders.” His line 
of argument is to dissuade from pilgrimage to Jerusalem on 
the ground that if there were any higher sanctity in the place 
itself, such sanctity would be shewn in the lives of the 
inhabitants ; whereas the contrary was painfully obvious. If, 
therefore, a polygamy had been suffered in Jerusalem, which 
was alien to the practice of the purely Gentile Churches, an 
allusion to it would have been entirely apposite; but S. 
Gregory, like 5. Cyril, never hints at the existence of such 
polygamy.? 

S. Epiphanius says in his work against Heresies (A.D. 374- 8. Epi- 
376) that “it may be tolerated in the laity by reason of their P"@™"* 
weakness, and of their inability to remain constant to the first 
wife, that they should be connected with a second after the 
death of the first. Yet he who has had but one wife is held in 
greater praise and honour by all members of the Church.’? 

He goes on to say, in a passage which has been already noticed, 
that a man who has lost his wife, whether by death or divorce, 
may marry a second time, but not so “that he have two wives 


1S. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, N. c. 26. 

? S. Gregory Nyssen, Zp. 2. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 1012.) 

3.8. Epiphanius, Against Heresies, Bk. 11. Haer. 59. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 1], 
Ῥ. 1024.) 


S. Chry- 
sostom. 


S. Jerome. 


616 HOLY MATRIMONY 


at once, the first yet surviving.”! §. Epiphanius was bishop of 
Salamis in Cyprus, and, like S. Cyril of Jerusalem, he would 
include among his flock many persons of Jewish descent and 
traditions. His distinct exclusion of concurrent polygamy is 
therefore the more striking. 

S. Chrysostom is more lenient than some of his contempo- 
raries. “As marriage is admirable, but virginity is superior to 
it, so second marriage is admirable, but first and only marriage 
is superior to it.” That the widowed should remain unmarried 
is therefore a matter of commendation, but it is not in any 
way enjoined. 

Commenting on 2 Timothy, he says, “ Let the women listen, 
they who are associated in second marriages, and defile the bed 
of the deceased husband, whom once they loved. This I say, 
not forbidding second marriage, nor pronouncing it to be 
licentious; for Paul does not permit me, placing a bit in my 
mouth, and saying to the women, ‘ But if she marry, she hath 
not sinned. Let us however see what follows, ‘But she is 
happier if she so abide, for this condition is far better than the 
other.’*® 

Similarly commenting on Titus, he says, “For ye all know 
that although to engage in second marriage is not barred by 
the laws, nevertheless the practice is open to many grounds of 
objection.” 4 

S. Jerome expressed his views on the subject of second 
marriages in an extraordinary letter to Salvina, the young 
widow of Nebridius. This lady was personally unknown to 
S. Jerome, but he had heard of her in his retreat in Palestine, 
and wrote to her in consequence. He tells her that the reason 
of S. Paul’s concession of second marriages is to be found in 
his statement that some were “already turned aside after 
Satan.” Remarriage then was better than sin, and that was 
all which could be said for it. “ Accordingly let a young widow, 


1 §. Epiphanius, Against Heresies, Bk. 11. Haer. ὅθ. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. 
p. 1024.) 

2 §. Chrysostom, Jn illud, Vidua eligatur, &c. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 325.) 

3 bid. on 2 Tim. 6, iii. Hom. vii. (Migne’s Ed. tom. xi. p. 641.) 

4 Ibid. in Epist. ad Titum, cap. I. Hom. ii. 


POLYGAMY 617 


who cannot or will not contain, accept a husband rather than 
the devil.”! Whatever Salvina may have thought of S. Jerome’s 
letter, it is interesting to learn that she did in fact remain 
unmarried, and that she became one of the deaconesses who 
devoted themselves to Church work under 8. Chrysostom in 
Constantinople. 

In his letter to Ageruchia, another widow lady, 8S. Jerome 
expresses the same views with equal crudeness.*? Remarriage 
is permitted by the apostle that there may be connexion with 
one rather than with many.? Notwithstanding these strong 
views as to the ignoble character of second marriages, 5. Jerome, 
in a letter to Marcella on the errors of the Montanists, is 
careful to guard against the entire prohibition of such mar- 
riages, a prohibition which formed one of the peculiarities of 
the Montanist sect.4 Again, commenting on the Epistle to 
S. Titus, he is careful to point out that not every monogamist 
is to be preferred to a digamist, since the circumstances of 
marriages are so widely different.° 

S. Ambrose, in the De viduis, says that “we neither prohibit 5. 
second marriages, nor do we counsel them.” “I say more, we dete 
do not prohibit second marriages, but we do not approve 
marriages often repeated ; for everything which is lawful is not 
therefore expedient. All things are lawful to me, says the 
apostle, but all things are not expedient. And it is lawful to 
drink wine, but it is not fitting to drink a very large 
quantity.”® 

The writer known as Ambrosiaster, commenting on the first Ambro- 
epistle to the Corinthians, appears to imply that the practice “****" 
of withholding the benediction from second marriages was 
already in force in his day. “First marriages are celebrated 
solemnly under the benediction of Gop, but second marriages, 


1S. Jerome, Zp. 79. To Salvina. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 732.) 

2 Ibid. Ep. 123. To Ageruchia. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1050.) 

3 The example of the non-Christian world must not be overlooked. S. Jerome’s 
argument is one of the commonplaces of the Hindu social reformer of the present 
day. 

48. Jerome, Hp. 41. To Marcella. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 475.) 

5 Ibid. On the Epistle to Titus, c. I. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 564.) 

6 S. Ambrose, De viduis, c. xi, (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 254.) 


9. 
Augustine. 


Statuta 
ecclesiae 
antiqua. 


S. Amphi- 
lochius. 


Socrates. 


618 HOLY MATRIMONY 


even in this present life, lack glory; yet they have been 
conceded on account of incontinence.”? 

S. Augustine, in the De Bono Viduitatis, says that Ruth was 
blessed, but that Anna was more blessed. Second marriages 
are not condemned, but they are less highly honoured. The 
heresy of the Novatians and of Tertullian is to be avoided.” 

Quesnel has placed together in the works of 8. Leo, under 
the head of Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, some remarkable regula- 
tions of the African churches. Before a bishop was consecrated 
many questions were to be asked of him. Among them he was 
to be asked “ whether he did not discountenance marriage, and 
whether he did not condemn second marriages.” The African 
churches may be supposed to have been brought into occasional 
touch with the polygamous practices which prevailed in the 
barbarous communities upon their fringe, but is it possible that 
a church which found it necessary to impose such tests as 
those just noticed, should have been in any danger of an inroad 
of polygamous practice within its borders ? 

S. Amphilochius is of opinion that the remarriage of a widow 
is blameworthy, especially when there is offspring by the first 
marriage. If there are no children he thinks that remarriage 
is much more readily permissible.* 

Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian, states that “the Nova- 
tians in Phrygia do not receive digamists. But they in the 
city of Constantine neither openly receive them, nor openly 
expel them.”® 

Summing up the testimony of the first four centuries on the 
subject of successive marriages, we find ourselves confronted all 
along the line, in East and West alike, with a rigorism of 
view which has now passed away from the Christian Church. 
Whether the ancient rigorism or the modern laxity is the 
nearer to the mind of Him “who made one” is perhaps an 


1 Ambrosiaster, On the first Epistle to the Corinthians. (Migne’s Ed. 
S. Ambrose, tom. 1]. p. 226.) | 

2 §. Augustine, De Bono Viduitatis, cap. iv. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 433.) 

3 Statuta ecclesiae antiqua (in Ballerini’s S. Leo, Migne’s Ed. tom. iii. p. 880). 

4 8. Amphilochius, Oratio in Domini oceursum. 

5 Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Bk. V. ο. 22. (Migne’s Ed. p. 641.) 


POLYGAMY 619 


open question ; but there can hardly be any reasonable question 
that the rigorism of the early Church left no scope for lax 
views on the subject of the admission of polygamists to Impossible 
baptism. It is surely more than plain that if any such in- Soe 


dulgent practice was in force, or even contemplated, it would could have 
2 : found a 


have been the subject of no measured animadversion on the place in the 
eae ' Earl 
part of some. That there is simply no instance of any such Gy, 
practice mentioned by any early Christian writer, as either 
contemplated or in force, is proof as convincing as need be 


desired that no such practice did in fact ever obtain. 


AUTHORITIES ON POLYGAMY. 
ORIGEN. 
In Genesim. Hom. XI.! 


Quid ergo? putamus quod in tanto patriarcha per idem tempus 
incitamenta carnis viguerint? Et qui olim naturalibus motibus 
emortuus dicitur, nune ad libidinem redivivus putabitur? An, ut 
saepe jam diximus, patriarcharum conjugia mysticum aliquod indicant 
sacramentum ἵ 


Sic et ille in Scripturis vir justus Elchana duas simul refertur 
habuisse uxores, quarum una Fenenna, alia Anna dicebatur, id est 
conversio et gratia. Et primo quidem dicitur de Fenenna filios 
suscepisse, id est de conversione, et postmodum de Anna, quae est 
gratia, 

TERTULLIAN. 
Ad Uzxorem, lib. i. c. 2.? 

Non quidem abnuimus conjunctionem viri ac foeminae benedictam 
a Domino, ut sciremus generi humano et replendo orbi et instruendo 
saeculo excogitatam, atque exinde permissam; unam tamen. Nam 
et Adam unus Evae maritus, et Eva una uxor illius, una mulier, una 
costa. Sane apud veteres nostros, ipsosque patriarchas, non modo 
nubere, sed etiam plurifariam matrimoniis uti fas fuit, erant et con- 
cubinae: sed licet figuratum in synagogam et Ecclesiam cesserit, ut 
tamen simpliciter interpretemur, necessarium fuit instituere, quae 
postea aut amputari, aut temperari mererentur. Superventura enim 
lex erat, oportebat legis adimplendae causas praecucurrisse. Idem 








1 Migne’s Ed. tom. xii. pp. 221-2. 4 Ibid, tom. i. p. 1277. 


620 HOLY MATRIMONY 


mox legi succurrere habebat, Dei sermo circumcisionem inducens 
spiritalem. Igitur per licentiam tunc passivam, materiae subsequen- 
tium emendationum praeministrabantur, quas Dominus Evangelio 
suo, dehinc Apostolus in extremitatibus saeculi, aut excidit redun- 
dantes, aut composuit inconditas. 


TERTULLIAN. 
De Monogamia, c. 6.1 
Quid digamia illa Abrahae portendat, idem apostolus edocet, inter- 
pretator utriusque Testamenti, sicut idem semen nostrum in Isaac 


vocatum determinat. Si ex libera es, ad Isaac pertinens, hic certe 
unum matrimonium pertulit. 


De Monogamia, c. 4.3 


At ubi primum scelus, homicidium, in fratricidio dedicatum, tam 
dignum secundo loco scelus non fuit, quam duae nuptiae. 


Cap. 5. 

. .. Si ita factum est a primordio, invenimus nos ad initium 
dirigi a Christo: sicut in quaestione repudii, dicens illud propter 
duritiam ipsorum a Moyse esse permissum, ab initio autem non ita 
fuisse, sine dubio ad initium revocat matrimonii individuitatem. 


S. JEROME. 
Epistle to ϑαϊυΐπα. 
Primus Lamech maledictus, et sanguinarius, et de Cain stirpe 


descendens, unam costam divisit in duas, et plantariam bigamiae 
protinus diluvii poena subvertit. 


Epistle to Ageruchia. (No. 123.)4 


Primi hominis creatura nos doceat, plures nuptias refutare. Unus 
Adam et una Eva, imo una ex eo costa separatur in feminam. 
Rursumque quod divisum fuerat, nuptiis copulatur, dicente Scriptura: 
Erunt duo in carnem unam ; non in duas, nec in tres. Propter quod 
relinquet homo patrem et matrem, et adhaerebit uxort suae ; certe non 
uxoribus. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 937. 2 Ibid. p. 934. 
3 Ibid. tom. i. p. 732, 4 Ibid. pp. 1053-4. 


POLYGAMY 621 


At Patriarchae non singulas habuerunt uxores, imo et concubinas 
habuere plurimas. Et, ne hoc parum sit, David multas, et Salomon 
habuit innumerabiles. Judas ad Thamar, quasi ad scortum, ingreditur. 
Et juxta occidentem litteram, Osee Propheta non solum meretrici sed 
etiam adulterae copulatur. Quod si et nobis jure conceditur, adhin- 
niamus ad omnes feminas, et In exemplum Sodomae et Gomorrae, ab 
ultimo die deprehendamur vendentes, et ementes, nubentes, et nuptul 
tradentes, et tune sit finis conjugii, quando terminus vitae. 

Haec dicimus, non separantes Legem et Evangelium, ut Marcion 
calumniatur; sed unum atque eumdem suscipientes Deum, qui pro 
varietate temporum atque causarum principium et finis; serit ut 
metat, plantat ut habeat quod succidat; jacit fundamentum ut 
aedificationi, consummato saeculo, culmen imponat. 


S. AMBROSE. 
De Abraham, lib. i. § 23.4 


Movere tamen aliquos potest, quod jam cum Deo loquebatur, et ad 
ancillam introivit, sicut scriptum est: Quia diait Sara ad Abram: 
Ecce conclusit me Dominus, ut non pariam.: intra ergo ad ancillam 
meam, ut filios facies ex tlla. Et ita factum est. Sed consideremus, 
primum quia Abraham ante legem Moysis, et ante Evangelium fuit: 
nondum interdictum adulterium videbatur. Poena criminis ex 
tempore legis est, quae crimen inhibuit: nec ante legem ulla rei 
damnatio est; sed ex lege. Non ergo in legem commisit Abraham, 
sed praevenit. Deus in paradiso leet conjugium laudaverit, non 
adulterlum damnaverat. Non vult enim mortem peccatoris, et ideo 
quod praemii est pollicetur: quod poenae non exigit. Mavult enim 
mitibus provocare quam terrere saevioribus. Et tu peccasti cum 
gentilis esses, hebes excusationem: venisti ad Ecclesiam, audisti legem: 
Non adulterabis, jam excusationem delicti non habes. 


S. AUGUSTINE. 
De nuptiis et concupiscentia, lib. 1. ο. 8, 9.2 
Sic (prolis gratia) patres sanctos ex Abraham et ante Abraham, 
quibus Deus quod ei placuerint perhibet testimonium, usos fuisse 
conjugibus neminem oportet dubitare christianum ; quando quibus- 
dam etiam singulis plures habere concessum est, ubi ratio fuit prolis 
multiplicandae, non variandae appetitio voluptatis. 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. i. p. 429. 2 Ibid. tom. x. p. 419, 


622 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Nam si Deo patrum nostrorum, qui etiam noster est, illa numerositas 
conjugum propterea non displicuisset, ut copiosius se libido jactaret, 
ita etiam sanctae feminae servissent pluribus singulae: quod si aliqua 
faceret, quid eam nisi concupiscentiae turpitudo compelleret, ut plures 
viros haberet, quando ista licentia plures filios non haberet. Verum- 
tamen magis pertinere ad nuptiarum bonum, non unum et multas, 
sed unum et unam, satis indicat ipsa prima divinitus facta conjugum 
copula, ut inde connubia sumerent initium, ubi honestius attenderetur 
exemplum. Progrediente autem genere humano, junctae sunt quibus- 
dam bonis viris bonae feminae, singulis plures. Unde apparet et 
illud dignitatis magis appetisse modestiam, et hoc fecunditatis 
permisisse naturam. Nam et principatus magis naturaliter unius in 
multos, quam in unum potest esse multorum. Nec dubitari potest 
naturali ordine viros potius feminis, quam viris feminas principari. 
Quod servans Apostolus ait, Caput mulieris vir ; et, Mulieres subditae 
estote viris vestris: et apostolus Petrus, Quomodo Sara, inquit, obse- 
quebatur Abrahae, dominum illum vocans. Quod licet ita sese habeat, 
ut natura principiorum amet singularitatem, facilius autem pluralita- 
tem in subditis: tamen plures feminae uni viro nunquam licite 
jungerentur; nisi ex hoc plures filii nascerentur. Unde si una 
concumbat cum pluribus, quia non est ei hince multiplicatio prolis, 
sed frequentatio lbidinis, conjux non potest esse, sed meretrix. 


De Fide et Operibus, c. 19.1 
De concubina quoque, si professa fuerit, nullum se alium cogni- 


turam, etiamsi ab illo, cui subdita est, dimittatur, merito dubitatur, 
utrum ad percipiendum baptisma non debet admitti. 


Toe LamBetH CONFERENCE, 1888. 
Resolutions formally adopted by the Conference. 

5. (A) That it is the opinion of this Conference that persons living 
in polygamy be not admitted to baptism, but that they be 
accepted as candidates and kept under Christian instruction 
until such time as they shall be in a position to accept the 
law of Christ. ? 

(Bs) That the wives of polygamists may, in the opinion of this 
Conference, be admitted in some cases to baptism, but that 


4 Migne’s Ed. tom. vi. p. 221. ? Carried by 88 votes to 21. 


POLYGAMY 623 


it must be left to the local authorities of the Church to 
decide under what circumstances they may be baptised. 


Report of the Committee? appointed to consider the subject of 
Polygamy of Heathen Converts. 

Your Committee have approached the consideration of the subject 
submitted to them with an overwhelming sense of their responsi- 
bilities, Inasmuch as the question intimately affects the sanctity of 
marriage, and therefore lies at the root of social morality. 

After considering various representations which have been laid 
before them from divers quarters, they beg leave to report as 
follows: 


1. Your Committee desire to affirm distinctly that Polygamy is 
inconsistent with the law of Christ respecting marriage. 

2. They cannot find that either the law of Christ or the usage of 
the early Church would permit the baptism of any man living in 
the practice of polygamy, even though the polygamous alliances 
should have been contracted before his conversion. 

3. They are well aware that the change from polygamy to 
monogamy must frequently involve great difficulty and even hard- 
ship, but they are of opinion that it is not possible to lay down a 
precise rule to be observed under all circumstances in dealing with 
this difficulty. 

They consequently think that the question of time and manner, 
which must depend largely on local circumstances, can only be 
determined by local authority. 

4, Your Committee recommend that persons living in polygamy 
should, on their conversion, be accepted as candidates for Baptism, 
and kept under Christian instruction until such time as they shall be 
in a position to accept the law of Christ. 

They consider it far better that Baptism should be withheld from 
such persons, while neverthéless they receive instruction in the 


1 Carried by 54 votes to 34. 
2 Names of the Members of the Committee : 


Bishop of Durham (Chairman). Bishop of the Niger. 
3 Central Africa. Bishop Perry. 
Ἢ Chester, Bishop of Sierra Leone. 
Exeter. - South Dakota. 
Ἵ Guiana, + Travancore, 
" London, Ἢ Waiapu. 
" Meath. He Zululand. 


+, Missouri. 


624 HOLY MATRIMONY 


truths of the Gospel, than that a measure should be sanctioned 
which would tend to lower the conception of the Christian law of 
marriage, and thus inflict an irreparable wound on the morality of 
the Christian Church in its most vital part. 

5. The wives of polygamists may, in the opinion of the Committee, 
be admitted in some cases to Baptism, inasmuch as their position is 
materially different from that of the polygamist husband. In most 
countries where polygamy prevails they have no personal freedom 
to contract or dissolve a matrimonial alliance; and moreover they 
presumably do not violate the Christian precept which enjoins fidelity 
to one husband. 

6. In carrying into effect the principles here laid down, with due 
regard to the dictates of love and justice, serious burdens will in 
.some cases be imposed on the Churches, but no trouble, or cost, or 
self-sacrifice ought to be spared to make any suffering which may be 
caused as light and easy to bear as possible. 

7. Difficult questions of detail which may arise in following these 
recommendations must be left to the decision of the local authorities 
of the Church, whether Diocesan or Provincial. 

8. Throughout this Report polygamy has been taken to mean the 
union of one man with several wives; but among some tribes the 
union of one woman with several husbands is a recognised institution. 
It will be plain that no such union can be recognised by the Church. 


9. It has been represented to your Committee that heathen 
marriages in many cases do not imply a mutual pledge of life-long 
fidelity ; and instruction has been asked as to the mode of dealing 
with such cases on the conversion of the contracting parties, so as to 
impart a Christian character to the contract. The Committee think 
it best to leave the local authorities of the Church to determine in 
what way this end may be best attained; but they deprecate any 
course which would tend to impair the validity (within their own 
sphere) of contracts undertaken prior to conversion, so far as these 
contracts are not inconsistent with the law of Christ. 


10. In laying down the principles which should rule the admission 
of Christian converts for the future, the Committee have no intention 
of passing any censure on those who have decided otherwise in the 
past ; and they desire to leave to individual Bishops the responsibility 
of dealing with difficulties which may arise in any part of the 
mission-field from the adoption of a different line of action heretofore 
by those in authority. J. B. Dunewy, 


Chairman. 


POLYGAMY 625 


It has been shewn that polygamy has no support from early 
Christianity, first, because early Christianity was not confronted 
with it, and also because the teaching of the Church on the 
subjects (a) of remarriage after divorce and (() of second 
marriages settled the question by anticipation. 

Since, therefore, polygamy lay entirely outside the experience Polygamy 
of the early Christian writers, they are never found to deal πεν Sealt 
directly with the matter as of practical bearing. They do eran: 
sometimes touch upon it by way of commentary on the Old 
Testament scriptures. They experience a difficulty in justify- Sometimes 
ing to their flocks the lives of the patriarchs of the old law. ete? >y 


way of 
Various reasons for Gop’s sufferance or sanction of polygamy comment 


are assigned. The majority appear to have been content with en 
the view that the procreation of children, an object of great 
importance in the beginnings of the race, was thereby the 
better attained. It is strange that acute writers like S$. Clement 
of Alexandria and S. Aueustine failed to see that the question 
as regards offspring 1s not, How can one man come to have 
the largest number of children? but, Given a certain number 
of women of child-bearing age, will they be most fruitful if 
many of them are assigned to one man, or if each have a 
husband of her own? Probably in the absence of the exact 
statistics of modern times, the early Christian writers were 
more or less of opinion that the world contained more women 
than men. However this may be, it need hardly be said in 
the present day that the statement that polygamy is more 
fruitful than monogamy is demonstrably false, and that the 
reverse proposition is one of the established results of social 
science. 

Origen, in his mystic way, sees in the polygamy of the Origen. 
patriarchs a sort of sacramentum. Writing of Abraham’s 
marriage with Keturah, he asks, “Or, as we have often said 
before, do the marriages of the patriarchs indicate a certain 
mystic sacramentum ?”4 Further on he gives an example in 
Elkanah: “And so that just man Elkanah is related to have 
had two wives at the same time, of whom the one was called 


1 Origen, Jn Genesim. Hom. xi. (Migne’s Ed. tom. xii. pp. 221-2.) 
2 8 


S. Clement 
of 
Alexandria 


Tertullian. 


626 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Peninnah, and the other Hannah, that is, conversion and grace. 
And first, indeed, he is said to have begotten children of 
Peninnah, that is, of conversion, and afterwards of Hannah, 
which is grace.”! It would serve no sufficient purpose to 
attempt to refer to all the statements in early Christian 
writers on the subject of the polygamy of the patriarchs. 
Those references which, starting from the polygamy of the 
patriarchs, use it to establish the marked contrast of Christian 
practice, are of more importance. 

Thus 5. Clement of Alexandria says that “the same Man 
and Lord, making old things new, no longer concedes polygamy, 
for at that time Gop required it (ἀπῇτει) because it was 
necessary to increase and multiply, but He brings in single 
marriage for the sake of procreation of children, and for that 
care of the house for which woman was given as a help.” 

Tertullian is never tired of pointing out that the original 
marriage of Paradise was the marriage of one man with one 
woman. Subsequently, “among our ancients, and the patriarchs 
themselves, it was not only legitimate (fas) to marry, but even 
to use manifold marriages. There were also concubines, but 
although there might have been a figurative reference to the 
synagogue and the Church, yet that we may interpret with 
simplicity it was then necessary to institute practices which, 
at a later date, would deserve to be either abolished or 
modified.’* This occurs in the Ad Uxorem, and represents 
Tertullian’s views in the days of his orthodoxy. In _ his 
Montanist days he is disposed to take refuge in figurative 
intention as the one justification of the polygamy of Abraham, 
while the polygamy of others, as of Lamech, is branded as 
crime. “ What that digamy of Abraham portends let that 
same Apostle teach, the interpreter of either Testament, as 
he determines that our seed is called in Isaac. If thou art 
from the free woman, pertaining to Isaac, he certainly was 
married but once.’* Of Lamech’s polygamy he says that 








1 Origen, Jn Genesim. Hom. xi. (Migne’s Ed. tom. xii. pp. 221-2.) 

2S. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata iii. 12. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1184.) 
8. Tertullian, 4d Uxorem, lib. 1, c. 2. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i p. 1277.) 

4 Tertullian, De Monogamia, c. 6. (Migne’s Ed, tom, ii. p. 937.) 


POLYGAMY 627 


after the fratricide of Cain “there was no crime so worthy 
of the second place as double nuptials.’? 

The argument of Tertullian that the monogamy of the 
original institution is restored by Christ would be unexception- 
able, if it were not employed to discredit second marriages. 
“Tf thus it was done from the outset, we find ourselves directed 
to the beeinning by Christ; as in the question of divorce, 
saying that that had been permitted by Moses on account of 
their hardness, but that from the beginning it had not been 
so, so without doubt he recalls to the beginnings the un- 
dividedness of marriage.”? 

S. Jerome is careful to point out that Lamech, the introducer S. Jerome. 
of bigamy, was a person accursed, and blood-guilty, and a 
descendant of Cain.2 In the Epistle to Ageruchia he refers to 
the polygamy of the patriarchs as a reductio ad absurdum of 
the argument that their example was a_ justification for 
Christians in marriage relations.‘ 

S. Ambrose explains the connexion of Abram and Hagar by s.ambrose. 
the statement that “adultery was apparently not yet forbidden.” 
For a Christian who should act similarly there would be no 
excuse.°® 

S. Augustine, in the De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, says that 5. 
the reason why polygamy was conceded to the patriarchs was “*&"st"® 
that they might have more abundant offspring.® 

A passage of some interest in the De Fide et Operibus has 
already been referred to in Chapter VIII. 5S. Augustine says: 
“Tt is rightly a matter of doubt, in the case of a concubine who 
has affirmed that she will have intercourse with no other man, 
even if she be dismissed by him with whom she is connected, 
whether she ought not to be admitted to the reception of 
baptism.”’ The case has its analogies with the case of the 
wife of a polygamist 27 posse. 


1 Tertullian, De Monogamia, c. 4. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 934.) ? bid. ο. 5. 

3S. Jerome, Epistle to Salvina. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 732.) 

4 Ibid. Epistle to Ageruchia. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. pp. 1053-4.) 

5 §. Ambrose, De Abraham, lib. i. ὁ 23. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 429.) 

6 §. Augustine, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, lib. 1. ο, 8, 9. (Migne’s Ed. tom. 
x. p. 419.) 

7 Ibid. De Fide et Operibus. (Migne’s Ed, tom, vi. p. 221.) 

28 2 


628 HOLY MATRIMONY 


It may thus be generally stated that the Christian writers of 
the early centuries never regarded polygamy as possible in the 
ease of a Christian, and that they looked to the practice of the 
patriarchs in the matter of polygamy as to a concession which 
had passed away, and not as to an example which might be 
followed. 

There is indeed no tittle of evidence forthcoming that the 
Christian Church did at any time, or in any place, receive 
among her reconciled children either a man who was living as 
the husband of two or more women, or a woman who was 
living as the wife of two or more men. There is no evidence 
of the existence of any such practice among those who were 
already Christians, and there is no evidence of the admission 
to baptism of any non-Christian who retained the practice. 

The Appended to the earlier authorities given above is the report 

pare ας of the Committee of the Lambeth Conference of 1888, which 

of 1888. = was “appointed to consider the subject of polygamy of heathen 
converts,’ and the resolutions which, after consideration of the 
report, were formally adopted by the Conference. They demand 
the respectful attention of every Anglican churchman. The 
first resolution will admit to baptism no person living in 
polygamy; that is to say, maintaining conjugal relations with 
more than one wife or husband. ‘The second resolution runs: 
“That the wives of polygamists may, in the opinion of the 
Conference, be admitted in some cases to baptism, but that it 
must be left to the local authorities of the Church to decide 
under what circumstances they may be baptized.” The wives 
of polygamists so admitted are, of course, understood to be 
themselves exclusively faithful to one husband. 

Polygamy Ὁ far as regards the contemporary controversy, it is not 

por open sought by any to claim for persons baptized a right to enter 

Christian. upon fresh relations of a polygamous character, but only to 
justify the granting of permission to polygamous converts to 
retain after their baptism the wives which they possessed 
before their baptism. In this treatise the principles which 
have been arrived at preclude the according of this permission. 
The only sexual connexion open to a baptized man, without 
bringing with it a fall from grace, is the connexion of Christian 


POLYGAMY 629 


marriage, involving, as in the first institution, exclusive fidelity 
to one wife. Nor has Holy Scripture, or Christian tradition, 
one word to urge on the other side. We conclude, therefore, 
that no polygamist may continue his relations with more than 
one wife after his baptism. | 

The case of a polygamist’s wife, who may become a convert, 
has been already adverted to in Chapter VIII. The difficulty Case of a 
here does not lie (1) in the difference of religion, which is 2°32... 
provided for by the Pauline privilege; or (2) in the absence of converted 
exclusive fidelity on the husband’s part, for a Christian wife Christi. 
is not bound to put away her husband for adultery; or (3) in *™Y: 
the absence of exclusive fidelity on the wife’s part, for she is 
presumably faithful to the one husband; but (4) in the fact 
that she is no more the polygamist’s wife than any one of his 
other wives. Her conversion to Christianity cannot deprive 
the other wives of their hitherto equal rights, and the difficulty 
seems to be expressed by two questions: (a) Is the converted 
wife of a polygamist sufficiently his wife for her union to 
become to her Christian marriage at her baptism? (0) If 
she be, and she be allowed to continue after baptism her 
conjugal relations with the polygamist husband, and if her 
marriage become to her Christian or Holy Matrimony, will 
it afterwards be open to one or more of the other wives, upon 
conversion and baptism, to continue their conjugal relations 
with the same husband, as being also to them Christian or 
Holy Matrimony? The difficulty is great. If both questions 
are answered affirmatively, we are confronted by the possible 
eases of a Musulman with four Christian wives, or of a Kulin 
Brahman with twenty. S. Augustine, as has been seen, deals 
with a case which has some analogies. With regard to a 
woman whose status was that of a concubine under the 
toman Law, if she were prepared to promise fidelity to her 
consort, even though he should dismiss her (presumably for 
another woman, whether wife or concubine), he declares that 
“it is rightly a matter of doubt whether she ought not to 
be admitted to the reception of baptism.” Here a woman 
bound by a tie which before the Roman Law was professedly 
dissoluble, and indeed presumably temporary, might, he thinks, 


630 HOLY MATRIMONY 


accept the union as being to her Christian marriage, and in- 
volving, as far as she was concerned, both indissolubility and 
exclusive faithfulness. But even by the Roman Law the man, 
if he afterwards married a wife in the legal sense, could not 
then continue his relations with the concubine. There would 
be no concurrent polygamy, and there can be little doubt also 
that in 8. Augustine’s view the concubine, admitted to baptism 
and to the continuance of her status as being to her Christian 
marriage, was in fact the one possible Christian wife, to the 
exclusion of any other woman who might afterwards obtain 
the status of wife as before the secular law. The case may 
help to determine the answer to the first of the two questions. 
It is the case of a Woman whose union, open to supersession as 
it was, might perhaps be permitted to continue after baptism if 
accepted by herself as Christian marriage. It must be re- 
membered also that in the vast majority of the cases of 
married converts, divorce by the unconverted partner, in- 
volving supersession of the convert by a fresh wife or husband, 
as the case might be, was always to be reckoned with as a 
future possibility. On the whole it may be said to be probable 
that the converted wife of a polygamist is sufficiently his wife 
for her union to become to her Christian marriage at her 
baptism. But next comes the difficulty expressed in the 
second question. One Christian woman has been permitted to 
continue her relations with the polygamist husband, and these 
relations have now become to her Christian marriage. Another 
of the wives is convinced of the truth of Christianity and 
desires baptism. May this wife also be allowed, after baptism, 
to continue her conjugal relations with the same husband ? 
She can, of course, only do so on the understanding that from 
the time of her baptism the union is to her Christian marriage, 
exclusive and indissoluble. But is this now open to her? 
Granted that before the baptism of any one of the wives all 
had equal conjugal rights, can that be said when one of the 
wives has been baptized and allowed to accept her status as 
being to her Christian marriage? The difficulty would become 
acute if, after the baptism of the two wives, the husband also 
were to seek baptism. He would only be permitted to retain 


POLYGAMY 091 


one of the wives after his baptism. So far as the obligations 
of his pre-Christian unions went he would probably not be 
bound to retain either, though Christian charity, and perhaps 
ecclesiastical requirement, might demand that he should keep 
one or the other, but both he ought not to keep. Which, then, 
should he put away? It has been sometimes answered that 
he should keep the first baptized, but while this might often be 
the best course, he had been no party to the strict conditions of 
Christian matrimony which the women had in each case ac- 
cepted for themselves at their baptisms; and unless and until 
he agreed to accept those conditions with regard to either 
woman, neither could claim him as by right her husband, 
necessarily bound to her in the Body of Christ as she, since 
her baptism, had held herself bound to hin. 

Putting aside now the possible conversion of the husband, 
it does not appear that the second wife converted is necessarily 
barred from continuing conjugal relations with her non-Christian 
husband by the fact that another of the wives has already been 
baptized, and has already accepted her status as Christian 
marriage. The action of the first wife cannot necessarily bind 
the husband to choose her more than another in the event of 
his becoming a Christian, because she cannot thus in anticipation 
control the freedom of his consent. Accordingly the second 
wife who is baptized, and wishes to continue conjugal relations, 
is in no worse position than the first, though in no better. 

Essentially therefore, or so far as the Divine laws of marriage 
are concerned, it would appear that either of the two women, 
and that both, may be permitted to avail themselves of the 
concession which permits a converted wife to remain with a 
non-Christian husband. In any case such an union can only 
exist under circumstances of grave inequality; but, as was 
seen in the last chapter, the Divine mercy supplies a special 
grace to the converted partner to make good what is lacking in 
the union so far as it affects herself. It would appear that the 
case of a polygamist, two of whose wives become Christian, 
while it is a case ilustrating in a marked manner the grave 
inequalities of unions between Christians and non-Christians, 
is not necessarily a case outside the operation of the Divine 


092 HOLY MATRIMONY 


concession. Each of the two women may have the grace 
supplied which is required to make her union to be to her 
Christian marriage. 

While, however, this may be the right conclusion from the 
point of view of the Divine law, it is obvious that the 
possession by one polygamist of two or more Christian wives 
is eminently undesirable. Apart from other considerations, 
there is always the possibility of the man’s own baptism, and 
the consequent necessity of putting away every wife but one. 
In practice, therefore, by persuasion and by ecclesiastical 
regulation, it may commonly be desirable to check the growth 
of any tendency to permit more than one Christian wife to 
remain with a non-Christian husband. 

The resolution formally adopted by the Lambeth Conference 
embodies the best wisdom of the Church upon the subject. 
It may be repeated here: “That the wives of polygamists may, 
in the opinion of this Conference, be admitted in some cases to 
baptism, but that it must be left to the local authorities of the 
Church to decide under what circumstances they may be 
baptized.” 

This chapter may be concluded by the formulation of the 
definite rules which our investigations appear to indicate : 


1. No baptized man may become the husband of more than one 
woman at the same tome. 


2. No baptized woman may become the wife of more than one 
man at the same time. 


3. No male convert may after baptism continue marital relations 
with more than one wife. 


4. No female convert may after baptism continue conjugal relations 
with more than one husband. 


5. No male convert from a polyandrous community may after 
baptism continue marital relations with a polyandrous 
woman, the “connivance at adultery,” and the “confusio 
prolis” being unholy. 


6. A female convert who is the wife of a polygamist husband may 
um some cases be permitted to continue after baptism conjugal 


POLYGAMY 633 


relations with the polygamist husband, the particular cases 
being left to the local Church authorities. In any case where 
the female convert is thus permitted to continue conjugal 
relations with a polygamist husband, the union must be held 
to have become to her Christian marriage, and therefore both 
excluswe and indissoluble. 


Cre ΡΘΗ δὲ 
OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 


Intro- N the investigations which have been pursued on the subjects 
ps (1) of divorce and remarriage, and (2) of polygamy, one 
great principle has been found to establish itself alike in the 
teaching of Holy Scripture, and in the belief and practice οὗ 
the Christian Church. It is the principle that for members of 
the body of Christ nothing short of the requirements of the 
Christians original Divine institution can be admitted. There was no 
are bound “divorce in the original institution, and there is no divorce in 


a the marriage of members of the body of Christ. There was 
divorce and ; : : : : 
polygamy NO polygamy in the marriage which GoD instituted, and the 
pee Christian may not be a polygamist. He will do well to abstain 
institution. from the condemnation of those who, in the fallen state, and 
deprived of the sustaining grace of Gop, have practised either 
divorce or polygamy; for Gop Himself has been mysteriously 
long-suffering as regards these declensions from the primal law 
in the persons of the fallen and unrestored. But in his own 
case the Christian can admit neither divorce with remarriage 
nor polygamy, for either would be a fall from grace, a forfeiting 
of the blessedness of the reconciled, a return to the state of 
sin in which outside Christianity the race still hes involved. 
The In turning next to the mysterious subject of the unholiness 
ae of alliances with near kin, we seem to come upon another side 


marriages of the mystery of marriage. Divorce and polygamy contra- 
of near kin aes ᾿ Z : : 
may be not Vened the Divine institution, but in a fallen state were suffered 


somucha Jy the Divine long-suffering. The alliance of near kin, unholy 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 635 


now because of the shamefulness of the fallen nature, may part of the 
probably not have been repugnant to the marriage of Paradise ; Ps οΩ 
but as the first result of the Fall was that Adam and Eve could asa result 
no longer be “naked and not ashamed,” so in the “ uncovering cen οτ 
of the nakedness” of those nearly related is ever found “an 
abomination to the Lord,” and as it were the very seat and 

centre of the special curse attaching to the Fall. The nation 

which does these things is “vomited out”; the individual who put such 
does them is “ cut off.” erties 

In the relationships of near kin, therefore, it may be that divorce and 
the fallen nature which we have inherited hinders us from eset 
reverting altogether to the possibilities of the unfallen State ; every 
but further, if unlike divorce and polygamy these alliances heathen, 
were not permitted by Gop to remain without warning or κῆν ἘΠ ΤΕ 
without punishment, even in the case of the heathen, much Oe ae 
more are they unholy to the reconciled people of Gop. 

That alliances of near kin were prohibited even to the Universal 
heathen is sufficiently clear. In a former chapter it was seen oP Dee 
that as after the Fall all flesh corrupted itself, not the least of Prohibition. 
its corruptions was that nearness of unholy alhance by which 
blood touched blood, and the nakedness of those to whom 
honour was due was uncovered in the shametulness of its 
fallen condition. It was probably so before the Flood, but 
certainly when after the Flood man began again to multiply 
upon the earth, the sin of incestuous alliance became the 
fruitful mother of curse and disaster to the race. If, while 
recognising Gop’s mercy to His chosen people, we yet ask in 
reverent amazement what the Canaanites had done that they 
should be driven out from their pleasant land, and destined 
by Gop to annihilation, we are not left without an answer. 

“ After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, 
shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, 
whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in 
their statutes,” are the words which introduce the enumeration 
of the acts of unholy alhance forbidden in the 18th chapter 
of Leviticus; and the enumeration is brought to a close with 





Sen eee Vill 5... ἢν. 


636 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the solemn warning, “ Defile not ye yourselves in any of these 
things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out 
from before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit 
the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her 
inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep my statutes and my 
judgments, and shall not do any of these abominations: neither 
the homeborn, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you: 
(for all these abominations have the men of the land done 
which were before you, and the land is defiled); that the land 
vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out 
the nation that was before you. For whosoever shall do any of 
these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut 
off from among .their people. Therefore shall ye keep my 
charge, that ye do not any of these abominable customs, which 
were done before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein : 
I am the Lord your Gop.”? 

The sins of the Canaanites were clearly the sins which are 
legislated against in the verses which intervene between the 
two passages which have been cited; and these sins comprise 
fifteen cases of incest,? the sin of connexion during the 
menstrual impurity,*? the passing of children through the fire 
to Moloch,* the sin of sodomy,® and the sin of bestialty.® 
Such are the sins of which it is said, at any rate generally, that 
they cause a nation to be vomited out from its land, and in the 
ease of individuals bring about the result that the souls which 
do them are cut off from among their people. This then is 
a law of universal application, from which even the most 
benighted of the heathen are on no account to be held 
exempt. 

The universal moral obligation of the laws which bar the 
marriage of near kin is indicated no less clearly in the 20th 
chapter of Leviticus. After an enumeration in which are 
found mentioned both (a) sins of incest and (0) sins against 
nature, there immediately follows this exhortation: “ Ye shall 
therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do 

1 Lev. xvili. 24-30. ΠΟΥ͂. 2 Verses 6-18, 


3 Verse 19. 4 Verse 21. 
SS Verse 22a 6 Verse 23. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN. 637 


them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, 
vomit you not out. And ye shall not walk in the customs of 
the nation, which I cast out before you: for they did all these 
things, and therefore I abhorred them.”’ These sins then were 
the great cause of Gop’s abhorrence of the Canaanites. Any 
nation which does such things, whether it be the chosen nation, 
or a nation from among the outside heathen, will be “ vomited 
out.” Clearly therefore the heathen, as well as the people of 
Gop, are held fully responsible in the matter. 
The preceding chapters of this volume have prepared us to The higher 
expect that the Christian law, applicable to the members of the Bie! 


of the 
body of Christ, will be more entirely stringent in demanding meio 
the unsullied purity of marriage, which alone can be suffered passing by 
in that holy body, than was the Jewish law, which was 2\F.eq 
promulgated for a banished if favoured race before the redemp- bogie 
tion of Calvary, and still more than the laws of heathen to the 
nations, howsoever otherwise distinguished by a laudable moral (eos 
standard. This higher stringency is very marked as regards ee 
divorce and polygamy. It will not be without its force in the 
matter of near alliances. The chosen people were suffered in 
certain deflections which contradicted the clearly expressed 
tenor of the Divine prohibitions. Such a deflection was (1) 
the Levirate Law, and (2) on one view of the meaning of 
Leviticus xvi. 18, another would be the union with the 
deceased wife’s sister. Any such deflections the Christian 
Church will naturally treat as analogous to the once suffered 
practices of divorce and polygamy, and passing them by as not 
permissible to the reconciled children of Gop, will revert to 
the fulness of the Divine requirement. Except, however, on 
these minor points, the prohibition of all marriages of near kin 
has been held binding not only on the chosen people, but on reimposing 
the heathen. The principle of the higher stringency of the ἘΠ 5, 
Christian marriage law demands therefore that these prohibi- erie 
tions be held binding ὦ fortiort upon Christians. application. 
The enquiry into the provisions of the Mosaic Code is thus 


no longer merely an enquiry into the history and development 


They. XXMee Ron a Res 


(i.) The 
Mosaic 
Code. 


638 . HOLY MATRIMONY 


of certain laws and practices among the chosen people, but it 
is of immediate practical application. Prohibitions which were 
binding on the very heathen, and that under pain of annihila- 
tion, must be no less binding on ourselves. 


1. HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
(.) The Mosaic Code. 


The Mosaic prohibitions are to be found in three lists. Of 
these, the first occurs in Leviticus xvii., and consists of 14 [15] 
relationships; the second is in Leviticus xx., and consists of 
8 relationships, with the penalty of breach attached; and the 
third is in Deuteronomy xxvi., where 3 relationships are 
enumerated, with the addition of a curse. 


Leviticus xvi. 6-18: 

6 None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover 
their nakedness : I am the Lorp. 

7 The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou 
not uncover: she zs thy mother ; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 

8 The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy 
father’s nakedness. 

9 The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of 
thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness 
thou shalt not uncover. 

10 The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even 
their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for their’s 7s thine own nakedness. 

11 The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she 
is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness, 

12 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she 7s thy 
father’s near kinswoman. 

13 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she 7s 
thy mother’s near kinswoman. 

14 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt 
not approach to his wife: she 7s thine aunt. 

15 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she ἐβ thy 
son’s wife ; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 

16 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it ds thy 
brother’s nakeduess. 

17 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, 
neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to 
uncover her nakedness ; for they wre her near kinswomen : it is wickedness. 

18 Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her 
nakedness, beside the other in her life tzme. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 639 


Leviticus xx. 11, 12, 14, 17, 19-21: 

11 And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s 
nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be 
upon them. 

12 And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be 
put to death: they have wrought confusion ; their blood shall be upon them. 


14 And if a man take a wife and her mother, it 7s wickedness: they shall be 
burnt with fire, both he and they ; that there be no wickedness among you. 


17 And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s 
daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked 
thing ; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered 
his sister’s nakedness ; he shall bear his iniquity. 


19 And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor of 
thy father’s sister : for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity. 

20 And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s 
nakedness: they shall bear their sin ; they shall die childless. 

21 And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it 7s an unclean thing: he 
hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness ; they shall be childless. 


Deuteronomy xxvii. 20, 22, 23. 
20 Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife ; because he uncovereth his 
father’s skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen. 


22 Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the 
daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen. 

23 Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall 
say, Amen. 


The following table will be convenient for comparison : 





‘[pueqsny s,104ST9] 
‘pueqsny S,.1aq}OUL 5, 1911070 
‘purqsny 5.10 ΠΊοτα s 19y4e 7 

‘purqsny 5.192 9086 
‘pueqsny 5,1911077 
“IoYJOI 5. puvqsn}y 

.191|18} Ss pueqsnyy 

"MOS S.loYJOIg 5, puvqsnyy 
‘MOS §,104SIG 

ἼΟΒ § Loy 7016 

.19178} S Loy JOT 

“10718} S.19Y} BT 


“IOYOIg 
ἼΟΒ S puRqsny 
πος 


HOLY MATRIMONY 





‘UCMOM OY} JO OPIS eT} MOT 
pesseidxe sdiqsuonver eureg 





640 


errors 


eee 


eeeeee 


‘posino— 1a4sIg 
‘posmMo—ojIM S$ Jot} RT 


ΟΣ 


‘eSIMO ΠΏ. “Ὁ 
ἽΛΧΧ ΔαϊοποιθΊΠ96 


"SSOTP[IYO— JIM S 1970 160 

ἽΠ0Ο06 0} 1189} ---λλΈ- τ1- θη SNe 
‘SSO[P[IYO OIP—ajJIM Seoul) 
191515 5.1911071 


‘Aymbrur 1011} 1896] "107515 5. 101781 


eoeee 


“Ayreued Wy 8 
“XX SNOI}IAN'T 


‘[194SI8 591] 
*“1OYYHNVP 5.192 5 }}80 5,911 MA 
"107 9 }80 5,105 5.911 A 


10}YSNp (0 ᾿1θηΊοτα SOJT MA 
Joy pure 

UBIO AA ,, ἃ 1971 9 80 5.911 }ὴ. 

‘OJIM 5 1ΘῈ 10 16 

ὍΠΑ SOG 


ὍΠΛΑ 5. 10.70.16 5,191|18 
"1Θ1515 5.191|707 
*194SIS 5..19178. 
᾿ΘΉΠ3ΠῈΡ 5.102} 9086 
“104 |9}80 5,.ποῷ 

‘(qoyjour Jo 1eyySnep 

Io “19018} jo 19175Π80 
‘IaqSIS-J[VY BUIPN[OUT) 104STtg 
ὍΠΛΑ. 5.,191|18. 
‘LOY OW 


“£ypeuod ynoqyr [ST] FI 
ἼΠΔΣ SNOT}IAOT 


NVPW FHL OL NHdUd/@xX0X SHIDVIALVN 


‘| Favs 


[uv] [91] 


DV 
ΨΥ 
ΨΥ 


es 


Aytum3 
-uest0g 


vI 
41 
a 


“ON 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 641 


It will be seen that the two enumerations of Leviticus xx. 
and Deuteronomy xxvii. do not add any fresh relationships to 
the list given in Leviticus xvili., except that the prohibition to 
marry an uncle’s wife in ihavaittens xx. may be taken to cover 
the case of a mother's brother's wife, as well as that of the reasonable 


father’s brother’s wife specified in Leviticus xviii. aera 
It would be out of place to expect in a legal system of the discernible 


. : in the 
character of the Mosaic Code the exhaustive completeness Or provisions 


the analytical arrangement of modern bodies of law. Yet it rps 
is not difficult to discern a reasonable arrangement in the 
provisions of the Code. They begin with (a) a preamble (@) 
which, by alluding to the cases of the Canaanites and the >, preamble. 
Egyptians, expresses the universality of the obligations about 
to be laid down, and the character of the punishment which 
will result from any general breach of them. They go on to 
the expression of (() a general enactment: “ None of you shall (8) 
approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their malas" 
nakedness: I am the Lord.” This general enactment lays down 
the inherent impurity, at least in a fallen race, of connexions of 
near kin, and their consequent character as breaches of Divine 
law. (y) Then follow a certain number of representative cases, (7) 
by no means exhaustive of the principles which they involve, Represe™ 
but, as it would seem, leaving those principles to be inferred as ¢ases- 
necessarily involved in the cases given, and to be applied from 
those cases to others as occasion may require. While the re- 
presentative cases given are greatly defective on any possible 
principle, if regarded as an exhaustive statement, they are at 
the same time redundant in one ease, and to a certain extent 
in a second; but the grounds of the redundancy are at once 
obvious. The names of Abraham and of Jacob were rightly 
honoured by the chosen people, not only as the names of their 
own patriarchs, but as the names of patriarchs who had been 
specially blessed and favoured by Almighty Gop. As we have 
seen, however, in the gradual withdrawal of Gop’s chosen in- 
struments from the sin around, Abraham had not escaped a 
connexion of inherent wrongfulness with his half-sister Sarah, 
nor had Jacob escaped a connexion at once bigamous and in- 
cestuous with Rachel and Leah. It would seem, therefore, that 

2T 


642 HOLY MATRIMONY 


in order that these two cases of the marriage of near kin should 
not be made precedents, two particular provisions are expressly 
inserted. : 

1. While in verse 9 there are express prohibitions of marriage 
with both sister and half-sister, and with half-sister when 
daughter of the father as well as when daughter of the mother, 
in verse 11 the case of the half-sister, begotten of the father, is 
significantly repeated, and it is said with, what seems to us, an 
unnecessary insistance, “She is thy sister”; “The nakedness 
of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is 
thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.” Here was 
the case of Abraham’s marriage, the case of the father’s 
daughter, whose near relationship tribes in a low state of 
morality shewed themselves so slow to recognise. 

2. While marriage with a step-granddaughter is expressly 
prohibited in verse 17 as being “ wickedness,” the case of mar- 
riage with a wife’s sister needs to be expressly guarded against 
in verse 18, even during the lifetime of the wife. This was the 
case of Jacob. 

(ὁ) The While, however, it is not reasonable to look for either the 
of the exhaustive expression, or the exclusion of redundancy, which 
coszie would be found in a modern code, the provisions of the Mosaic. 
involve law do necessarily involve certain great principles, which are 


certain 


great not difficult to apply. 


principles. (4) The first of these is that all persons nearly related by 
ΜΕ blood are by that relationship debarred from intermarriage. 


relation- The prohibition extends practically to all ascendants and 


mat descendants, but only to the nearer cases of collaterals. 

ment. (8) The next .principle is that relationships of affinity, or 
ues connexion by marriage, as well as relationships of con- 
ἘΠῚ “" sanguinity, or connexion by heredity, are grounds for pro- 
oie hibition. of marriage. The total number of prohibitions in 


the three Mosaic tables is 14, or, counting the doubtful .case 
of the deceased wife’s sister, 15. Of the 14, 6 are relation- 
ships of consanguinity, and 8 of affinity. There are therefore 
more express prohibitions of marriage on the ground of BH, 
-than on the ground of consanguinity. 

(y) Another principle which is deducible from the code is 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 643 


the principle that relationship through the woman is precisely (7) 
analogous to relationship through the man. Thus there is yio°°™ 
equal prohibition of marriage with a son’s daughter and with pant 
a daughter’s daughter; with a father’s sister and with a analogous 
mother’s sister; with a wife’s son’s daughter and with a wife’s Br7sHom 
daughter’s daughter. This principle, which is indeed obvious Send 
in itself, will enable us to construct an analogous table of 
prohibitions for the woman, the tables in the Mosaic law 


being tables of prohibition addressed only to the man. 


TABLE II. 
MARRIAGES FORBIDDEN TO THE WOMAN. 





Consan- " Wheat s Same relationships 
No. | guinity or LS ΘπΣυΤΡΣ ἈΠ ΔΙΟΡΟΌΒ 52 ΒΟΣΌΔΠΥ expressed from the side of 
Affinity. those in Table I. expressed SRP 
in Table I. 

Die. Con. Father. τος Daughter. 

2 Aff. Mother’s husband. If 

3 Con Brother. I 

4 Con Son’s son. Father’s mother. 

5 Con Daughter’s son, Mother’s mother. 

6 Con. Father’s brother. Brother’s daughter. 

7 Con Mother’s brother. Sister’s daughter, 

8 Aff. Mothevr’s sister’s husband. τ Wife’s sister’s daughter. 

9 Aff. Daughter’s husband. 1, 
10| Aff. Sister’s husband. if 
11 Aff. Husband’s son. ᾿ 
12 Aff. Husband’s father. 1: 
18 Aff. Husband’s son’s son. Father’s father’s wife. 
1S R AG Husband’s daughter’s son. Mother’s father’s wife. 

Additional prohibitions to the Analogous relationships 
woman actually expressed forbidden to the man. 
in Table I. 

15 Aff. Husband’s brother. i Wife's sister. 
16 Con Son. I. Daughter. 
17 Con Father's father. I. Father’s mother. 
18 Con Mother’s father. " Mother’s mother. 
19 Con Brother’s son. If Brother’s daughter. 
20| Con Sister’s son. I. Sister’s daughter. 
Ὁ] Aff. Husband's brother’s son. Ἰ Wife’sbrother’s daughter. 
Ὁ Δεῖ Father’s mother’s husband. Ε Father’s father’s wife. 
23 Aff. Mother’s mother’s husband. if Mother’s father’s wife. 





mA an Fe 


(5) 

A man and 
his wife 
are one 
basar. 


644 HOLY MATRIMONY 


This table places us in a position to judge of the value of 
the statement made by Luther, and still not uncommonly 
made even in works of repute,! that the list in Leviticus xviil. 
was intended to be exhaustive; in other words, that all re- 
lationships not expressly forbidden in it must be understood 
to be sanctioned. If so, the Divine law sanctions the 
marriage of a woman with her father, with her grandsons, 
and with her uncles—a reductio ad absurdum which surely 
precludes the necessity of proving more at length the right- 
fulness of including in the prohibition the analogous rela- 
tionships of Table IL. 

(6) The next principle to be noted as characterising the 
scriptural prohibitions is the principle which governs relation- 
ship by affinity; viz., that a man and his wife are one basar, 
flesh or kin; and that accordingly the near of kin of the 
husband are forbidden to the wife, and vice versd. The eight 
relationships of affinity forbidden in Leviticus xvii. are these: 


1. Father’s wife. 

. Father’s brother’s wife. 
Son’s wife. 

. Brother’s wife. 

. Wife’s daughter. 

. Wife’s mother. 

. Wife’s son’s daughter. 

. Wife’s daughter’s daughter. 


δι bo 


οΟ -τὐὖ5ϑ Our 


Relationships of affinity are prohibited by most ancient 
codes, but the principles adduced to explain such prohibitions 
are not always the same. Thus the principle of household 
modesty, which precludes all persons living in the same 
household or under the same patria potestas from the possi- 
bility of marriage with one another, is sometimes adduced. 
Relationships by adoption, as well as those by affinity and 
consanguinity, will come under its influence. Another prin- 
ciple of prohibition, not altogether analogous to any principle 
recognised in the West, is the principle of sapinda relationship 


1 e.g. the article ‘‘ Marriage,” in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, by the Rev. 
W. L. Bevan. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 645 


which governs the prohibitions of the Hindu law. But the 
Mosaic code is very clear in its statement, not only of a 
certain number of representative prohibitions, but of the true 
principle which must be held to underlie those prohibitions. 
“The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: 
it is thy father’s nakedness.” Here is the principle; the 
father and the father’s wife are one 6bdsdér—one flesh, one 
kin. Union with an uncle’s wife is forbidden, because “she 
is thine aunt.” “Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of 
thy brother’s wife: it 1s thy brother’s nakedness.” Similarly 
a wife’s daughter, her son’s daughter, and her daughter’s 
daughter are all to be avoided, “for they are her near kins- 
women: it is wickedness.” The Mosaic code may thus be 
said to be more careful in its statement of the true principle 
of affinity than in its enumeration of the cases of affinity 
which the principle covers. To make the application of the 
principle consistent, a third table must be framed, which will 
contain a total of 30 relationships. This table will be most 
familiar to English Churchmen if given in the order of the 
list appended to the 99th Canon, and commonly printed (by 
whatsoever authority) at the end of the Book of Common 
Prayer. 


646 


No. 


A Man 
may not marry his 


Grandmother. 
Grandfather’s wife. 
Wife’s grandmother. 


Father’s sister. 
Mother’s sister. 
Father’s brother’s wife. 


Mother’s brother’s wife. 
Wife’s father’s sister. 
Wife’s mother’s sister. 


Mother. 


Step-mother (father’s wife), 


Wife’s mother. 


Daughter. 
Wife’s daughter. 
Son’s wife. 


Sister. 
Wife’s sister. 
Brother’s wife. 


Son’s daughter. 
Daughter’s daughter. 
Son's son’s wife. 


Daughter’s son’s wife. 
Wife’s son’s daughter. 


Wife's daughter's daughter. 


Brother’s daughter. 
Sister’s daughter. 
Brother’s son’s wife. 


Sister’s son’s wife. 
Wife’s brother’s daughter. 
Wife’s sister’s daughter. 


HOLY MATRIMONY 
TABLE III. 
Table I. 
Table II. No A Woman 

or Ν may not marry with her 
Affinity. 

Lis 1 | Grandfather. 

itt 2 | Grandmother’s husband. 
Aff.(1) 3 | Husband’s grandfather. 

[ 4 | Father’s brother. 

Ι 5 | Mother’s brother. 

I 6 | Father’s sister’s husband. 
Aff. (5) 7 | Mother’s sister’s husband. 
Aff. (4) 8 | Husband’s father’s brother. 
Aff. (5) 9 | Husband’s mother’s brother. 

I 10 | Father. 

I 11 | Step-father (mother’s husband), 

I 12 | Husband’s father. 

If 13 | Son. 

I 14 | Husband’s son. 

I 15 | Daughter’s husband. 

I 16 | Brother. 

II 17 | Husband’s brother. 

I 18 | Sister’s husband. 

I 19 | Son’s son. 

Ἐ 20 | Daughter’s son. 

Aff.(19) | 21 | Son’s daughter’s husband. 
Aff.(20) | 22 | Daughter’s daughter's husband. 

A: 23 | Husband’s son’s son. 

I 24 | Husband’s daughter’s son. 

II 25 | Brother’s son. 

Lie 26 | Sister’s son. ! 
Aff.(25) | 27 | Brother’s daughter’s husband. 
Aff.(26) | 28 | Sister’s daughter’s husband. 

II. 29 | Husband’s brother’s son. 

rT 30 | Husband’s sister’s son. 


Table I. 
Table II. 
or 
Affinity. 


L. 
Aff.(16) 


ΤΙ. 
II. 
Aff (19) 


Aff. (20) 
II. 
ΤΙ. 


Τ' 
lf 
Aff. (25) 


Aff. (26) 
1. 
Aff. (26) 





OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 647 


This table, which is the recognised table of the English 
Church, is thus the table of the Mosaic code when the 
principles which that code necessarily involves are con- 
sistently applied. As the prohibitions of the Mosaic code 
are held to be binding even upon the heathen, they must be 
regarded as of Divine, and not merely of human, obligation. 
The English table may be said to be the most complete 
statement of the Divine laws in the matter. The Kastern 
and Western Churches have many more prohibitions than 
the prohibitions of this table, but they are not asserted to be 
of Divine obligation. On the other hand the Mosaic code 
expresses considerably fewer prohibitions, but the principles 
affirmed require that the prohibitions expressed shall be sup- 
plemented by the additional prohibitions of the table. 

In reaching this table we do in fact reach the complete 
statement of Divine law in the matter. Christianity has 
nothing to add to it, nor may it take aught away. 


(ec) Another principle of the Mosaic prohibitions may be («) 
said to be the principle of the magnet. The Eastern theology Rte τα 


of marriage constantly employs the figure of magnetic attrac- 
tion as the best explanation of the force of kindred in regard 
to marriage. Just as the magnet exercises its attraction with 
greater power on objects which are near, and with less power 
on objects which are farther off, while at length the attrac- 
tion, though to a certain extent it still exists, is yet so weak 
as to be practically inoperative, similarly in the matter of 
marriage the prohibitive force of near relationship is great, 
and of more distant relationship less, while at length, though a 
certain influence may still be perceived, it is not strong enough 
to effect actual prohibition. The very varying force of pro- 
hibition, corresponding with a like variation in the degree 
of unholiness attaching to the unions prohibited, may be 
gathered from the variety of the punishments assigned. The 
worst forms of offence are punished with death. A man who 
offends with his father’s wife or with his son’s wife is to be 
put to death, together with the partner of his offence. A man 
who takes a wife and her mother is to be burnt with fire, both 
- women sharing the punishment. Very different in heinousness 


of the 


“magnet.” 


648 HOLY MATRIMONY 


is offence with a mother’s sister or a father’s sister. Such 
persons “shall bear their iniquity,” an expression not altogether 
clear, but certainly indicating a punishment short of death. 
In two other cases childlessness is assigned as a penalty. If 
a man sin with his uncle’s wife, “they shall bear their sin, 
they shall die childless.” “And if a man shall take his 
brother’s wife . . . they shall be childless.” Yet in a par- 
ticular case this last connexion was even enjoined. 


hypo (ὦ Lastly may be noticed the principle of limitation. The 
alae general principle of limitation is indeed contained in what we 


limitation. have called the principle of the magnet. The prohibitive force 
of kinship in the matter of marriage ceases to be operative at 
a certain distance. From the Mosaic code we may, however, 
deduce certain subsidiary principles, by which to determine 
at what point prohibition may be held no longer to. exist. 
They are as follows: 


(1) Consanguinity does not bar unless one of the parties 18 
descended from the father or from the mother of the other. 


Thus uncle and niece may not marry, for the niece is descended 
from the uncle’s father. First cousins may marry, for neither 
is descended from the father or from the mother of the other. 


(2) Affinity does not bar the relations of the husband from 
marriage with the relations of the wvrfe. 

A man may not marry any of his wife’s relations nearer in 
blood than he can of his own, nor may a woman marry any of 
her husband’s relations nearer in blood than she can of her 
own. The wife becomes a member of the husband’s family, 
and the husband becomes a member of the wife’s family, but 
there is no fusion of the two families. 

Hence a man and his son may marry a woman and her 
daughter, or two brothers may marry two sisters, or a man 
may marry the widow of his deceased brother-in-law. 


(c) The The case of the deceased wife’s sister calls for particular 


f th ae ar, 
Seceasead HOtice. It is included under the principles which we have 


wite’s sister enumerated as necessarily contained in the provisions of the 
is inciude 


underthe Mosaic Code. (1) It cannot be excluded on the ground that 


<< 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 649 


it is a connexion of affinity, and not of consanguinity ; for principles 
‘ ς laid down. 

more than half the cases specified by the Mosaic Code are cases 
of affinity, and not of consanguinity. (2) It cannot be excluded 
on the ground that the analogous relation of the husband’s 
brother is exempted, for marriage with a husband’s brother 15 
condemned in two of the Mosaic lists, and is even assigned the 
penalty of childlessness, The Levirate Law contemplated what 
was altogether an abnormal and special case, although, of 
course, 1ts importance, as shewing the possibility of Divine 
dispensation under the circumstances of the Mosaic Code, is 
not to be passed by. (3) The principle underlying the prohi- 
bition of marriage on the ground of affinity, viz., that a man 
and his wife are one kin, applies with entire force to the case 
of the deceased wife’s sister. (4) The principle of the magnet 
finds in marriage with the wife’s sister one of the nearest of 
the relationships of affinity, and consequently the prohibitive 
force is not spent. (5) The subsidiary principles which mark 
the limits of prohibition do not apply to place this relationship 
outside those limits, 

In any case, therefore, whether the wording of the Mosaic 
Code can or cannot be construed to concede a permission of 
marriage with the deceased wife’s sister to the Hebrew man, as The _ 
in the special case of the Levirate custom the Code certainly Mey 
permitted the Hebrew woman to form a connexion with her pecaatie 
deceased husband’s brother, the entire rehabilitation of the Levitical 
Divine law in the Christian Church will exclude both. The aay bel 
conditions of unrestored humanity no longer exist for the ¥sderstood. 
restored. Neither divorce nor polygamy, neither marriage with 
the husband’s brother nor with the wife’s sister, can now be 
admitted in the body of Christ. As on the one hand, before 
Christ came, the most entire conformity with the requirements 
of the Divine laws would not have availed of itself to redeem 
a fallen soul, so, on the other hand, now that our Lord has 
effected the redemption, that entire conformity with the 
Divine laws is an essential condition of the acceptance of the 
individual in the ranks of the reconciled. 

The much debated question as to the meaning of Leviticus 
xviil. 18 is not therefore of any final importance in determining 


Leviticus 
Xviii. 18. 


(a) 

Some refer 
it to 
polygamy. 


650 HOLY MATRIMONY 


the duty of Christians in the matter. If Gop forbade the 
marriage of a wife’s sister to the Israelites, it is fair to conclude 
that it is no less forbidden to Christians. If Gop suffered such 
marriage among the Israelites, such sufferance would appear to 
be analogous to the sufferance of (1) divorce, (2) polygamy, 
and (3) the Levirate custom, and to be no more extended to 
Christians than is the case with those practices. 

Proceeding now to examine the verse, Leviticus xvii. 18, and 
its interpretation by the Jewish people in practice, we find that 
the verse has been rendered in two very different ways, and 
that in consequence it is sometimes taken to refer (1) ° to 
polygamy, and sometimes (2) to the wife’s sister. 


(a) It is contended by some that the passage does not refer 
to a wife’s sister at all, but that it is a prohibition of polygamy. 
The phrase ishah el achothah is certainly open to the translation 
“one wife to another,” or “one woman to another.” So the 
Rev. C. Forster writes: 


“The truth is that this phrase (‘a woman to her sister’), together 
with the similar formula in the masculine, viz., ‘a man to his brother,’ 
occurs, with slight variations of the intervening preposition or con- 
junction, two-and-forty times in the Hebrew Bible, and that never 
once does it designate the blood relationship of two sisters or two 
brothers, but always and invariably means (when used of persons) 
simply two men together, or two women together ; and when used of 
things (for it is used of things as well as of persons) it means two 
masculine or feminine things of the same kind. And it is actually 
thus translated in our Bible in thirty-two out of the forty-one other 
places where it occurs ; and in the other nine places brother obviously 
does not refer to consanguinity, but to proximity. If, therefore, this 
expression designates, in Leviticus xvill. 18, the blood relationship 
of two sisters, I can only say that it is the solitary instance in the 
whole Bible where it has such a meaning.”! 


The possibility of this interpretation “one woman to another” 
seems thus to be indisputable from the point of view of the 
Hebrew scholar; but it is urged against it, 

(1) That a prohibition of polygamy enters unnaturally into 

a list of prohibited degrees, whereas it would be 


1 Rev. C. Forster, Marriage with two Sisters contrary to the Holy Law of God 
and Nature, (London, 1850, p. 32.) 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 651 


suitable enough for a prohibition of marriage with a 
wife’s sister to follow, as this verse does, immediately 
after the prohibition of certain other unions of 
affinity, which are described as “ wickedness.” - 


(2) That if polygamy is really forbidden by the Mosaic code 
we should expect the prohibition 
(a) To be more prominently placed, 
(b) To have attracted more attention. 


(3) That polygamy is admitted and legislated for in other 
provisions of the Mosaic code. 


(4) That polygamy was commonly practised among the 
Israelites without even the suggestion of hindrance 
from the administration of the law. 

(5) That with the exception of the small and insignificant 
sect of the Karaites the Jews never interpreted the 
verse as a prohibition of polygamy, but as a prohibi- 
tion of marriage with a wife’s sister. 


(8) It is thus contended in the second place that the pro- 
hibition is a prohibition of marriage with the wife’s sister, but 
those who are agreed upon this point differ among themselves 
as to whether the verse (1) prohibits marriage with a deceased 
wife's sister or (2) permits it, or (9) is not intended to touch 
upon it. 

In favour of the general contention that the verse has 
reference, not to polygamy, but to the wife’s sister, are the 
arguments just cited. To these may be added the further 
argument, that the remarkable way in which this particular 
connexion of a man with his wife’s sister receives a special 
application to the case of the living wife, is accounted for by 
the fact that the legislature had to take special notice of the 
two kinds of marriage which had come down to the Hebrew 
people, commended by the high examples of Abraham and 
Jacob, ‘Those marriages had indeed been suffered by Gop in 
the period of transition in which He was first calling a cove- 
nanted family out from among the heathen, and then raising 
the covenanted family to be the chosen people; but from the 
chosen people a higher standard of morality was demanded 


(8) 
Others 
refer it to 
the wile’s 
sister. 


652 HOLY MATRIMONY 


than even from those just ones who came out from the corrup- 
tion of the race, as in later days a higher standard was to be 
demanded from Christians than is required of those who are 
outside Christianity. Accordingly, in the 18th chapter of 
Leviticus, the case of Abraham is specially met by the other- 
wise redundant provision of verse 11, and the case of Jacob 
is specially met by the provision of verse 18, now under 
consideration. 

If it be admitted that the verse refers to a wife’s sister, 16 
may mean, 

(1) That marriage with a wife’s sister 1s prohibited in any 
case, even when the wife is dead. 

Dr. Pusey says of the verse: “It is divided alike by the 
structure of the words, and by the Hebrew colon (so to call it), 
into two halves. 

‘A wife to her sister thou shalt not take: 

To vex, ad retegendain nuditatem ejus; beside her; so long 
as she liveth,’ 
The first half is the absolute prohibition; the second consists 
of supplementary clauses,” 

Dr. Pusey’s own view is that the verse prohibits polygamy ; 
but others, taking the view that it has reference to the wife’s 
sister, while retaining Dr. Pusey’s division of the verse, argue 
that the first half is an absolute prohibition, intended to pro- 
hibit union with the wife’s sister in any case, and that it comes 
in naturally, not to say necessarily, after the similar prohibition 
of marriage with a step-granddaughter on the ground that “it 
is wickedness.” The second clause is then simply an added 
condemnation of the particular case which Jacob’s example had 
seemed to sanction. 

(2) That marriage with a wife’s sister is permitted when the 
wife is dead. 

If the passage be read through without stops, the prohibition 
may be said only to apply to the case of a wife’s sister who 
is married in addition to the wife (i.) during her lifetime, and 
(11.) with the intent or probable result of vexing her. This 


' Dr. Pusey, Gop's Prohibition of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, 
p. 33. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 653 


interpretation, admitting marriage with the deceased wife’s 
sister, has the important support of the traditional rendering of 
the majority of Jewish expositors.1 The support of the Jewish 
teachers, however, is somewhat weakened by the fact that it is 
equally given to the case of marriage with a niece. Against 
this interpretation it is urged by some that “her lifetime” refers 
not to the wife, but to the wife’s sister, who remains prohibited 
to the man as long as she lives. Others argue that the negative 
argument is essentially unsafe. Thus Bishop Jewell: “This 
reasoning ὦ negativis 18 very weak, and makes no more proof in 
logic than this doth, ‘Corvus non est reversus ad arcam, donec 
exsiccatae sunt aquae,’ ergo ‘he returned again after the waters 
were dried up.’ Or ‘Joseph non cognovit eam, donec peperisset 
filium suum unigenitum,’ 6790 ‘Joseph knew her after she was 
delivered of her first-begotten child, or such other like.”? 
Similarly 8. Basil points out that the argument a negativis 
would admit of a man marrying two sisters at once, if only one 
did not vex the other.® 

(3) The verse may be directed only to the particular instance 
prohibited, which was the case of Jacob’s marriages, and may 


1 Yet not all. Thus the Mishna, Treatise Yebamoth iii. 7 rules: ‘‘ When, of 
three brothers, two are married to two sisters, and one to a stranger; if one of 
them who married the sisters died, and he who had married the stranger marries 
the widow, and then the wife of the second brother dies, and also the third 
brother who had married the stranger, then the widow will be for ever prohibited 
to the second, or surviving brother, because she was for some time prohibited to 
him” (doubtless under Lev. xviii. 18). Similarly § 9. 

Maimonides (A.D. 1135-1204) again says: “Brothers were considered as root 
and branch ; and it was, therefore, forbidden to marry a Wife’s Sister and a 
Brother’s Wife, because this was uniting two individuals to a third person, who 
were, as it were, root and branch.” [Zhe Reasons of the Laws of Moses, from the 
More Nevochim of Maimonides, by James Townley, p.p. London, 1827.] See 
also “ The Gwide of the Perplexed of Maimonides,” by Dr. Friedlander, Landon, 
1885, vol. ili. p. 264, Dr. Friedlander holds that ‘‘ there is no reason whatever 
to assume that, according to Maimonides, the prohibition of marrying the wife’s 
sister remains in force even after the death of the former.” 

Philo had no doubt that the law prohibited marriage with two sisters, even 
when one was dead or divorced. Zwons yap ἔτι τῆς συνοίκουσης εἴτε καὶ ἀπηλ- 
λαγμένης, ἐάν τε χηρεύσῃ, ἐάν τε καὶ ἑτέρῳ γαμηθῇ, τὴν ἀδελφὴν οὐχ ὅσιον ὑπελαβεν 
ἐπὶ τὰ τῆς ἠτυχηκυιας παρέρχεσθαι. (De specialibus legibus, quae referuntur ad 
pracceptum vi et vit.) 

2 Strype’s Parker, App. B. 2, No. 19, from the MS, in C. C. College. 

8S. Basil, Letter to Diodorus. 


No final 
determina- 
tion here 
attempted. 


For 
Christian 
practice 
the verse 
is of no 
final signi- 
ficance. 


654 HOLY MATRIMONY 


not be rightly susceptible of any inference whatsoever, either 
for or against marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. 

In an argument thus hotly contested, and’in regard to which 
so little ultimate agreement has yet been attained, no final 
determination need here be attempted. The present writer's 
convictions are on the whole in favour of the view that the 
verse refers not to polygamy, but to the wife’s sister; that its 
significance is to be found in the fact that it formally prohibits 
the particular case which Jacob’s example had seemed to 
sanction; and that outside that case the verse may have no 
application whatsoever. 

For the Divine law of marriage as binding upon Christians, 
the interpretation of Leviticus xvii. 18 is, as has been said, of 
no final significance. Granting, for the sake of argument, that 
the verse is even intended to permit marriages among the 
Israelites with the sisters of their deceased wives, the result of 
this permission would be to admit an exception analogous to 
the exception admitted by the Levirate custom. In that case, 
like the Levirate custom, and lke divorce and polygamy, the 
marriage with a wife’s sister will appear as a concession to the 
fallen and unredeemed, which could not be continued into the 
Christian state, in which the Spirit, dwelling in the members of 
the body, would require the full maintenance of the Divine 
laws of marriage. There is nothing which need startle in such 
a permission, if such a permission there was. The relation of 
the wife’s sister is not a nearer relation than that of the 
husband’s brother; and if both of these relationships are of 
nearer kin than some which are prohibited in all cases, they 
are also clearly indicated by the recorded gradations of punish- 
ment as being less unholy than certain other unions of affinity, 
as, for instance, the union with a stepmother, and than the 
analogous union of consanguinity, the marriage of brother and 
sister. It is conceivable, therefore, that while the more unholy 
unions were prohibited absolutely, even to the heathen, the less 
unholy inight become the subjects of a temporary permission ; 
and this is in fact the explanation we have already adopted in 
the matter of the Levirate custom. 

That custom, which is the one certainly permitted deflection 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 655 


from the laws prohibiting marriage in cases of near affinity, 4) The 
. : Ἔ ᾿Ξ case of the 
has been considered in Chapter V. Levirate 
law. 


(11.) The New Testament. 
In the New Testament reference may be made to the 


following passages. 


(a) S. Matthew xiv. 3, 4: 

8. Ὁ yap Ἡρώδης κρατήσας τὸν Ἴω- 
άννην ἔδησεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἔθετο ἐν φυλακῇ, 
διὰ Hpwdidda τὴν γυναῖκα Φιλίππου τοῦ 
ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ. 

4, "Ἔλεγε γὰρ αὐτῷ ὁ ᾿Ιωάννης, Οὐκ 
ἔξεστί σοι ἔχειν αὐτήν. 


(b) S. Mark vi. 17, 18: 

17. Αὐτὸς yap ὁ ‘Hpddns ἀποστείλας 
ἐκράτησε τὸν ᾿Ιωάννην, καὶ ἔδησεν αὐτὸν 
ἐν τῇ φυλακῇ, διὰ ΗἩρωδιάδα τὴν γυναῖκα 
Φιλίππου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὑτοῦ, ὅτι αὐτὴν 
ἐγάμησεν. 

18, "ἔλεγε γὰρ ὁ ᾿Τωάννης τῷ Ηρώδῃ, 
Ὅτι οὐκ ἔξεστί σοι ἔχειν τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ 
ἀδελφοῦ σου. 


8 For Herod had laid hold on John, 
and bound him, and put him in prison 
for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s 
wife. 

4 For John said unto him, It is 
not lawful for thee to have her. 


17 For Herod himself had sent 
forth and laid hold upon John, and 
bound him in prison for Herodias’ 
sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he 
had married her. 

18 For John had said unto Herod, 
It is not lawful for thee to have thy 
brother’s wife. 


(c) S. Luke in. 19: 

19. Ὁ δὲ Ἡρώδης ὁ τετράρχης, 
ἐλεγχόμενος ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ περὶ Ἡρωδιάδος 
τῆς γυναικὸς Φιλίππου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ 
αὐτοῦ, καὶ περὶ πάντων ὧν ἐποίησε 


19 But Herod the tetrarch, being 
reproved by him for Herodias his 
brother Philip’s wife, and for all the 
evils which Herod had done. 
πονηρῶν ὁ Ἡρώδης. 

S. John the Baptist incurred the displeasure of Herod 
Antipas and of Herodias because he said, “It is not lawful 
for thee to have her.” The three evangelists place the un- 
lawfulness of Herod’s union in the fact that Herodias was 
“his brother Philip’s wife.” Considerable discussion has found 
place as to whether it was the remarriage after divorce or the 
nearness of affinity which S. John condemned. Τ| only re- 
marriage after divorce was in question, such remarriage would 
have been open to any Jew, and certainly no less to’ the 
Idumaean Herod. There can be little doubt, therefore, that it 
was the incestuous character of the union which S. John 
mainly condemned. And it should not be overlooked that the 
incestuous union thus condemned was the union of a woman 


656 HOLY MATRIMONY 


with her husband’s half-brother. Herodias had been a gross 
offender in the matter of too near alliance. Her first husband, 
Herod Philip, was the full brother of her father Aristobulus, 
and therefore her own full uncle, while Herod Antipas, besides 
being the half-brother of Philip, was the half-uncle of Herodias. 


(d) 1 Corinthians v. 1-5: 


ὍΛΩΣ ἀκούεται ἐν ὑμῖν πορνεία, καὶ 
τοιαύτη πορνεία, ἥτις οὐδὲ ἐν τοῖς ἔθνε- 
σιν ὀνομάζεται, ὥστε γυναῖκά τινα τοῦ 
πατρὸς ἔχειν" 


2 Kai ὑμεῖς πεφυσιωμένοι ἐστὲ, καὶ 
οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἐπενθήσατε, ἵνα ἐξαρθῇ ἐκ 
μέσου ὑμῶν ὁ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο ποιήσας ; 


8 ᾿Εγὼ μὲν yap ὡς ἀπὼν τῷ σώματι, 
παρὼν δὲ τῷ πνεύματι, ἤδη κέκρικα ὡς 
παρὼν, τὸν οὕτω τοῦτο κατεργασάμενον, 


4 Ἔν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν 
᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, συναχθέντων ὑμῶν καὶ 
τοῦ ἐμοῦ πνεύματος, σὺν τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ 
Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 

5 Παραδοῦναι τὸν τοιοῦτον τῷ Σα- 
τανᾷ εἰς ὄλεθρον τῆς σαρκὸς, ἵνα τὸ 
πνεῦμα σωθῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ Κυρίου 
᾽Τησοῦ. 


Ir is reported commonly that there is 
fornication among you, and such for- 
nication as is not so much as named 
among the Gentiles, that one should 
have his father’s wife. 

2 And ye are puffed up, and have 
not rather mourned, that he that hath 
done this deed might be taken away 
from among you. 

3 For I verily, as absent in body, 
but present in spirit, have judged 
already, as though I were present, 
concerning him that hath so done this 
deed, 

4 In the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, when ye are gathered together, 
and my spirit, with the power of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, 

5 To deliver such an one unto 
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, 
that the spirit may be saved in the 
day of the Lord Jesus. 


The sin which is here condemned, and for which so solemn a 


penalty is assigned, is clearly sin with a stepmother. Such a 
union was, as ὃ. Paul indicates, an abomination even to the 
Roman. It was doubly inadmissible to the Christian. 


2. MARRIAGES GF NEAR KIN OUTSIDE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. 
AUTHORITIES AS TO THE ROMAN, HINDU, AND MUSULMAN 
SYSTEMS OF LAW. 

Gait INSTITUTIONES. 

Lib. i. §§ 58-64.1 

[Non omnes cives Romanas nobis uxores ducere licet]: Nam a 
quarundam nuptiis abstinere debemus. Inter eas enim personas quae 
parentum liberorumve locum inter se optinent, nuptiae contrahi non 
possunt, nec inter eas conubium est, veluti inter patrem et filiam vel 


1 Ed. Muirhead, Edinburgh, 1880. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 657 


matrem et filium vel avum et neptem; et si tales personae inter se 
coierint, nefarias et incestas nuptias contraxisse dicuntur et haec adeo 
ita sunt, ut quamvis per adoptionem parentum liberorumve loco sibi 
esse coeperint, non possint Inter se matrimonio conjungi, in tantum 
ut etiam dissoluta adoptione idem juris maneat. Itaque eam quae mihi 
adoptione filiae seu neptis loco esse coeperit, non potero uxorem 
ducere, quamvis eam emancipaverim. Inter eas quoque personas 
quae ex transverso gradu cognatione junguntur, est quaedam similis 
observatio, sed non tanta. sane inter fratrem et sororem prohibitae 
sunt nuptiae, sive eodem patre eademque matre nati fuerint sive 
alterutro eorum. sed si qua per adoptionem soror mihi esse coeperit, 
quamdiu quidem constat adoptio, sane inter me et eam nuptiae non 
possunt consistere ; cum vero per emancipationem adoptio dissoluta 
sit, potero eam uxorem ducere; sic etiam si ego emancipatus fuero 
nihil impedimento erit nuptis. Fratris fillam uxorem ducere licet : 
idque primum in usum venit cum divus Claudius Agrippinam fratris 
sui filiam uxorem duxisset: sororis vero filiam uxorem ducere non 
licet. et haec ita principalibus constitutionibus significantur. Item 
amitam et materteram uxorem ducere non licet; item eam, quae mihi 
quondam socrus aut nurus aut privigna aut noverca fuit. ideo 
autem diximus ‘quondam,’ quia si adhue constant eae nuptiae, per 
quas talis adfinitas quaesita est, alia ratione mihi nupta esse non 
potest ; quia neque eadem duobus nupta esse potest, neque idem duas 
uxores habere. ᾿ 

Ergo si quis nefarias atque incestas nuptias contraxerit, neque 
uxorem habere videtur neque liberos, itaque hi qui ex eo coitu 
nascuntur matrem quidem habere videntur, patrem vero non utique, 
nec ob id in potestate ejus sunt, [sed tales suntj quales sunt hi quos 
mater vulgo concepit: nam et hi patrem habere non intelleguntur, 
cum is etiam incertus sit; unde solent spurii filii appellari, vel a 
Graeca voce quasi σποράδην concepti, vel quasi sine patre ἢ]1]. 


J USTINIAN. 
Institutes, i. 10. 


Ergo non omnes nobis uxores ducere licet: nam quarundam nuptiis 
abstinendum est. Inter eas enim personas, quae parentum libero- 
rumve locum inter se optinent, nuptiae contrahi non possunt, veluti 
inter patrem et filiam vel avum et neptem vel matrem et filium vel 
aviam et nepotem et usque ad infinitum : et si tales personae inter se 
coierint, nefarias atque incestas nuptias contraxisse dicuntur. Mt 


aU 


658 HOLY MATRIMONY 


haee adeo ita sunt, ut, quamvis per adoptionem parentum liberorumve 
loco sibi esse coeperint, non possint inter se matrimonio jungi in 
tantum, ut etiam dissoluta adoptione idem juris maneat: itaque eam 
quae tibi per adoptionem filia aut neptis esse coeperit, non poteris 
uxorem ducere, quamvis eam emancipaveris. 

Inter eas quoque personas, quae ex transverso gradu cognationis 
junguntur, est quaedam similis observatio, sed non tanta. Sane 
enim inter fratrem sororemque nuptiae prohibitae sunt, sive ab 
eodem patre eademque matre nati fuerint, sive ex alterutro eorum. 
Sed si qua per adoptionem soror tibi esse coeperit, quamdiu quidem 
constat adoptio, sane inter te et eam nuptiae consistere non possunt: 
cum vero per emancipationem adoptio dissoluta sit, poteris eam 
uxorem ducere: sed et si tu emancipatus fueris, nihil est impedi- 
mento nuptils. Et ideo constat, si quis generum adoptare velit, 
debere eum ante filium suum emancipare: et si quis velit nurum 
adoptare, debere eum ante fillum emancipare. J ratris vel sororis 
filiam uxorem ducere non licet. Sed nec neptem fratris vel sororis 
ducere quis potest, quamvis quarto gradu sint. Cujus enim filiam 
uxorem ducere non licet, ejus neque neptem permittitur. Ejus vero 
mulieris, quam pater tuus adoptavit, filiam non videris impediri 
uxorem ducere, quia neque naturali neque civili jure tibi conjun- 
gitur. Duorum autem fratrum vel sororum liberi vel fratris et 
sororis jungi possunt. Item amitam licet adoptivam uxorem ducere 
non licet, item materteram, quia parentum loco habentur. Qua 
ratione verum est magnam quoque amitam et materteram magnam 
prohiberi uxorem ducere. Adfinitatis quoque veneratione quarundam 
nuptiis abstinere necesse est. Ut ecce privignam aut nurum uxorem 
ducere non licet, quia utraeque filiae loco sunt. Quod scilicet ita accipi - 
debeat, si fuit nurus aut privigna: nam si adhuc nurus est, id est si 
adhuc nupta est filio tuo, alia ratione uxorem eam ducere non possis, 
quia eadem duobus nupta esse non potest: item si adhue privigna tua 
est, id est si mater ejus tibi nupta est, ideo eam uxorem ducere non 
poteris, quia duas uxores eodem tempore habere non licet. Socrum 
quoque et novercam prohibitum est uxorem ducere, quia matris loco 
sunt. Quod et ipsum dissoluta demum adfinitate procedit: alioquin 
si adhuc noverca est, id est si adhuc patri tuo nupta est, communi 
jure impeditur tibi nubere, quia eadem duobus nupta esse non 
potest: item si adhuc socrus est, id est si adhuc filia ejus tibi nupta 
est, ideo impediuntur nuptiae, quia duas uxores habere non possis. 
Mariti tamen filius ex alia uxore et uxoris filia ex alio marito vel 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 659 


contra matrimonium recte contrahunt, licet habeant fratrem sororemve 
ex matrimonio postea contracto natos. Si uxortua post divortium ex 
alio filiam procreaverit, haec non est quidem privigna tua: sed 
Julianus hujusmodi nuptiis abstinere debere ait: nam nec sponsam 
filii nurum esse nec patris sponsam novercam esse, rectius tamen et 
jure facturos eos, qui hujusmodi nuptiis se abstinuerint.  Illud 
certum est serviles quoque cognationes impedimento esse nuptiis, si 
forte pater et filia aut frater et soror manumissi fuerint. Sunt et 
aliae personae, quae propter diversas rationes nuptias contrahere 
prohibentur, quas in libris digestorum seu pandectarum ex veteri jure 
collectarum enumerari permisimus. 

Si adversus ea quae diximus aliqui coierint, nec vir nec uxor nec 
nuptiae nec matrimonium nec dos intellegitur. Itaque 11, qui ex eo 
coitu nascuntur, in potestate patris non sunt, sed tales sunt, quantum 
ad patriam potestatem pertinet, quales sunt 11, quos mater vulgo 
concepit. Nam nec hi patrem habere intelleguntur, cum is etiam in- 
certus est: unde solent filii spurii appellari, vel a Graeca voce, quasi 
σποράδην concepti vel quasi sine patre filii, Sequitur ergo, ut et 
dissoluto tali coitu nec dotis exactioni locus sit. Qui autem prohibitas 
nuptias coeunt, et alias poenas patiuntur, quae sacris constitutionibus 
continentur. 

Coprex Justinianus, V. iv. 17.3 
Impp. Diocletianus et Maximianus AA. et CC. 

Nemini liceat contrahere matrimonium cum filia nepte pronepte, 
itemque matre avia proavia et ex latere amita ac matertera, sorore 
sororis filia et ex ea nepte, praeterea fratris fila et ex ea nepte, 
itemque ex adfinibus privigna noverca nuru socru ceterisque, quae 
jure antiquo prohibentur: a quibus cunctos volumus abstinere. 


D. K. Mai. Damasco Tusco et Anullino conss. 
[a. 295. | 
Coprex THeroposianus, III. xii. 1.3 
Impp. Constantius et Constans AA. ad provinciales Phoenices. 

Si quis filiam fratris sororisve faciendam crediderit abominanter 
uxorem aut in ejus amplexum, non ut patruus aut avunculus convo- 
laverit, capitalis sententiae poena teneatur. 

Dat. prid. Kal. Apr. Antiochiae, 
Constantio III. et Constante II. AA. Coss. 
[a.pD. 342. | 


1 Krueger, in the Corpus Juris Civilis; Berlin, 1877. 
2 Haenel’s Ed. p, 322. 


2} αὐ 


660 ΠΟΙ MATRIMONY 


Utpian, V. 6.1 


Inter parentes et liberos infinite cujuscumque gradus [sint] conu- 
bium non est. Inter cognatos autem ex transverso gradu olim 
quidem usque ad quartum gradum matrimonia contrahi non poterant: 
nune autem etiam ex tertio gradu licet uxorem ducere, sed tantum 
fratris filiam, non etiam sororis filiam aut amitam vel materteram, 
quamvis eodem gradu sint. Ham quae noverca vel privigna vel nurus 
vel socrus nostra fuit [wxorem| ducere non possumus. 


Copex TuHeroposianvs, III. xii. 3. 
Impp. Arcadius et Honorius AA. Eutychiano Pf. P. 


Manente circa eos sententia, qui post latam dudum legem quoquo- 
modo absoluti sunt aut puniti, si quis incestis posthac consobrinae 
suae vel sororis aut fratris filiae uxorisve vel ejus postremo, cujus 
vetitum damnatumque conjugium est, sese nuptiis funestarit, (The 
remainder concerns the penalties, which are mitigated.) 


Dat. VI. Id. Decemb. Constantinopoli, 
Arcadio IV. et Honorio III. AA. Coss. 
[a.p. 396. ] 


Coprx JusTinianus, V. 4. 19. 


Impp. Arcadius et Honorius AA. EHutychiano pp. 


Celebrandis inter consobrinos matrimoniis licentia hujus legis 
salubritate indulta est, ut revocata prisci juris auctoritate restinctisque 
calumniarum fomentis matrimonium inter consobrinos habeatur 
legitimum, sive ex duobus fratribus sive ex duabus sororibus sive ex 
fratre et sorore nati sunt, et ex eo matrimonio editi legitimi et suis 
patribus successores habeantur, 

1). ILI. Id. Iun. Nicaeae Stilichone II. et Anthemio conss. 
[a. 405. ] 


Copex TuHroposrianus, III. xii. 2.? 


Impp. Constantius et Constans AA. et Julianus Caesar ad Volusianum 
Vicarium Urbis. 


Etsi licitum veteres crediderunt, nuptiis fratris solutis ducere fratris 
uxorem, licitum etiam, post mortem mulieris aut divortium contrahere 
cum ejusdem sorore conjugium, abstineant hujusmodi nuptiis universi 





1 Muirhead’s Ed. p. 371. 
2 Haenel’s Ed. p. *322. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 661 


nec aestiment, posse legitimos liberos ex hoc consortio procreari : nam 
spurlos esse convenit, qui nascentur. 
Dat. prid. Kal. Maii Roma, 
Arbetione et Lolliano Coss. 
[a.p. 355. | 
Copex Justinianus, V. 5. 5. 
Imppp. Valentinianus Theodosius et Arcadius AAA. Cynegio pp. 
Fratris uxorem ducendi vel duabus sororibus conjungendi penitus 
licentiam submovemus, nec dissoluto quocumque modo conjugio. 
D...k. Dec. Constantinopoli Theodosio 
A. III. et Abundantio conss. [a. 393. ] 


Copex TuHroposranus, IIT. 12. 4.1 
Impp. Honorius et Theodosius AA, Aureliano 11. Pf. P. 
Tanquam incestum commiserit habeatur, qui post prioris conjugis 
amissionem sororem ejus in matrimonium proprium crediderit sor- 
tiendam ; pari ac simili ratione etiam, si qua post interitum mariti in 
germani ejus nuptias crediderit adspirandum : illo sine dubio insecu- 
turo, quod ex hoc contubernio nec filii legitimi habebuntur, nec in 
sacris patris erunt, nec paternam ut sui suscipient hereditatem. 
Dat. XVII. Kal. Iun. Constantinopoli 
DD. NN. Honorio Χ, et Theodosio VI. AA. Coss, 


[a.p. 415. | 
Coprex Justinianus, V. 4. 26. 


Imp. Justinianus A. Juliano pp. 


Ea videlicet persona omnimodo ad nuptias venire prohibenda, 
quam aliquis, sive alumna sit sive non, a sacrosancto suscepit baptis- 
mate, cum nihil aliud sic inducere potest paternam adfectionem et 
justam nuptiarum prohibitionem, quam hujusmodi nexus, per quem 
deo mediante animae eorum copulatae sunt. 

1). k. Oct. Constantinopoli Lampadio et Oreste 
vv. cc. conss. fa. 530.] 


BanerJEE, Dr. Gooroopass, 
The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhan.? 
Girls related to a man within certain degrees of relationship, 


commonly called the prohibited degrees, are not to be taken in 
marriage by him. 





1 Haenel’s Ed. p. *328, 2 Tagore Law Lectures, 1878, pp. 59 sqq. 


662 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Marriage between near blood relations is so universally repugnant 
to our feelings, that every system of law has its rule of prohibited 
degrees. The prohibition is also extended by analogy more or less to 
relations by affinity, fosterage, and adoption. I shall first of all 
give you the rules regarding prohibited degrees in the Hindu law, 
and then compare them with those of other systems. 

These rules are chiefly based upon the following texts : 

I. “She who is not descended from his paternal or maternal 
ancestors within the sixth degree (sapinda), and who is not known 
by his family name to be of the same primitive stock with his father 
or mother, is eligible by a twice born man for nuptials and holy 
union.” (Manu, iii. 5.) 

Sapinda is the word in the original which has been rendered as 
descended from ancestors within the sixth degree; that is, from 
persons in the ascending line within the seventh degree from the 
intending husband. This rendering is in accordance with the text 
of Manu (v. 60), which says that the sapinda relationship ceases 
with the seventh person. 

Il. “Having finished his studentship, let a man espouse a girl 
endowed with good qualities, one who was never married before, 
who is possessed of beauty, 1s not a sapinda, and is younger in age.” 
(Yajnavalkya, 1. 52.) 

As it is of importance that you should clearly understand the 
import of the word sapinda, I shall here subjoin the very full 
explanation of it given by Vijnaneswar! in his commentary on the 
above text. 

“(He should marry a girl) who is non-sapinda (with himself). 
She is called his sapinda who has (particles of) the body (of some 
ancestor, &c.) in common (with him), Non-sapinda means not his 
sapinda. Such an one (he should marry). Sapinda-relationship 
arises between two people through their being connected by particles 
of one body. ‘Thus, the son stands in sapinda-relationship to his 
father because of particles of his father’s body having entered (his). 
In like (manner stands the grandson in sapinda-relationship) to his 
paternal grandfather and the rest, because through his father particles 
of his (grandfather’s) body have entered into (his own). Just so is 
(the son a sapinda-relation) of his mother, because particles of his 
mother’s body have entered (into his). Likewise (the grandson 
stands in sapinda-relationship) to his maternal grandfather and the 





1 Mitakshara (sans) Acharadhyaya, leaf 6 et seq. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 663 


rest through his mother. So also (is the nephew) a sapinda-relation 
of his maternal aunts and uncles, and the rest, because particles of 
the same body (the paternal grandfather) have entered into (his and 
theirs) ; likewise (does he stand in sapinda-relationship) with paternal 
uncles and aunts and the rest. So also the wife and the husband 
(are sapinda-relations to each other), because they together beget one 
body (the son). In like manner, brother’s wives also are (sapinda- 
relations to each other), because they produce one body (the son) 
with those (severally) who have sprung from one body (7.e. because 
they bring forth sons by their union with the offspring of one person, 
and thus their husbands’ father is the common bond which connects 
them). Therefore, one ought to know that, wherever the word 
sapinda is used, there exists (between the persons to whom it is 
applied) a connection with one body, either immediately or by 
descent. ! 

“Τὴ the explanation of the word asapindam (non-sapinda, verse 52), 
it has-been said that sapinda-relation arises from the circumstance 
that particles of one body have entered into (the bodies of persons 
thus related), either immediately or through (transmission by) descent. 
But inasmuch as (this definition) would be too wide, since such a 
relationship exists in the eternal circle of births, in some manner or 
other, between all men, therefore the author (Yajnavalkya) says, verse 
53: ‘After the fifth ancestor on the mother’s, and after the seventh 
on the father’s.’ On the mother’s side, in the mother’s line, after the 
fifth; on the father’s side, in the father’s line, after the seventh 
(ancestor) the sapinda-relationship ceases; these latter two words 
must be understood ; and, therefore, the word Sapinda, which on 
account of its (etymological) import ‘(connected by having in com- 
mon) particles (of one body)’ would apply to all men, is restricted 
in its signification, just as the word pankaja (which etymologically 
means ‘growing in the mud,’ and therefore would apply to all plants 
erowing in the mud, designates the lotus only), and the lke; and 
thus the six ascendants beginning with the father, and the six 
descendants beginning with the son, and one’s self (counted) as the 
seventh (in each case), are sapinda relations. In case of a division 
of the line also one ought to count up to the seventh (ancestor), in- 
cluding him with whom the division of the line begins (e.g. two 


1 Vijnaneswar further explains that since some limitation is necessary, it is 
taken at the seventh ancestor, including the person with whom the computation 
starts.—-O, D. W. | 


664 HOLY MATRIMONY 


collaterals A and B are sapindas, if the common ancestor is not 
further removed from either of them than six degrees), and thus 
must the counting of the (sapinda-relationship) be made in every 
case.” 

I ought to add here that the word sapinda has, in other places, a 
meaning different from what is given above. Thus in the chapter on 
inheritance in the Code of Manu (ix. 186, 187) a sapinda means one 
who is related within the third degree, the sapinda relation being 
there based not on connection through one common body, but on 
connection through common oblation. 

III. “One must not marry a girl of the same gotra or pravaras, 
or as far as the fifth in degree from the mother, and seventh from 
the father.” (Vishnu Sutra, cited in the Udvahatattwa.) 

IV. ‘Girls descended from the father’s or mother’s bandhus are 
not to be taken in marriage as far as the seventh and fifth respectively, 
as well as those of the same gotra, or of equal pravaras.” (Narada, 
cited in the Udvahatattwa.) 

The word bandhu, which occurs in the above text, has been defined 
in a text quoted anonymously in the Udvahatattwa, which runs 
thus: “The sons of his father’s paternal aunt, the sons of his 
father’s maternal aunt, and the sons of his father’s maternal uncle 
must be considered his father’s bandhus. The sons of his mother’s 
maternal aunt, the sons of his mother’s paternal aunt, and the sons 
of his mother’s maternal uncle must be reckoned his mother’s 
bandhus.” 

From these texts and a few others, commentators have deduced the 
following rules : 

Rule I. (a) The female descendants as far as the seventh degree, 
from the father and his six ancestors, namely, the paternal grand- 
father, &c., 

(0) The female descendants as far as the seventh degree, from the 
father’s bandhus, and their six ancestors, through whom those females 
are related, 

(c) The female descendants as far as the fifth degree, from the 
maternal grandfather and his four ancestors, namely, the maternal 
ereat-erandfather, &., and 

(4) The female descendants, as far as the fifth degree, from the 
mother’s bandhus and their four ancestors, through whom those 
females are related, 
are not to be taken in marriage. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 665 


Rule II. A stepmother’s brother’s daughter, and his daughter’s 
daughter, are not to be taken in marriage. 

(After some further explanations, and the enumeration of certain 
exceptions admitted in practice, Dr. Banerjee proceeds as follows.) 

The rules as to prohibited degrees, subject of course to the 
exceptions noticed above, are absolutely imperative in their nature, 
and would nullify any marriage contracted in contravention of them. 


The prohibition by reason of affinity, which exists in other 
systems, has no place in Hindu law. But the prohibition of marriage 
with sapindas to some extent supplies its place, and so did the 
prohibition of widow marriage. The Hindu law, however, does not 
prohibit marriage with the wife’s sister, or even with her niece or her 
aunt. The prohibition on the ground of adoption resembles, to some 
extent, the corresponding provision in the Roman law, and the 
prohibition by reason of fosterage in the Mahomedan law. 

It is thought by some that the rule is based upon physical grounds, 
and that it is meant to prevent that physical degeneracy of the race 
which marriages between near relations would lead to. That may be 
true, but there is a still stronger reason for the rule: it is intended 
to prevent moral degeneracy, and consequent social evils which would 
otherwise result. 


The Hindus in those days lived in joint families, and under the 
same roof for generations together; and their remote collaterals (of 
course, on the paternal side only) were brought into contact in the 
same way as brothers and sisters in modern society. The prohibition 
of marriage between remote collaterals was not, therefore, as un- 
necessary as it may now seem to be. The rule when once established 
for the paternal side, was extended to the maternal side by analogy. 


Baiuuie, Netw. B. E. 
A Digest of Moohummedan Law. (Hanifeea.)} 
(ΟἿ 117, 
Of women who are unlawful or prohibited. Of these there are 
nine classes. 
Class first, 
Or such as are Prohibited by reason of Nusub or Consan- 
guinity. 





12nd Edition, London, 1875. 


666 HOLY MATRIMONY 


These are mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts paternal and maternal, 
brothers’ daughters and sisters’ daughters; and marriage or sexual 
intercourse with them, or even soliciting them to such intercourse, is 
prohibited for ever, that is, at all times and under any circumstances. 

Mothers are a man’s own mother, and his grandmothers by the 
father’s or mother’s side, and how high soever. Daughters are the 
daughters of his loins, and the daughters of his sons or daughters 
how low soever. Sisters are the ‘full sisters, and the half-sister by 
the father or the mother. And so as to the daughters of the brother 
and sister, and how low soever. Paternal aunts are of three kinds, 
the full paternal aunt, the half-paternal aunt by the father (that is, 
the father’s half-sister by his father), and the half-paternal aunt by 
the mother (or the father’s half-sister by his mother). And so also 
the paternal aunts of his father, the paternal aunts of his grand- 
father, and the paternal aunts of his mother and grandmothers. 
Maternal aunts are the full maternal aunt, the half-maternal aunt by 
the father (that is, the mother’s half-sister by her father), and the 
half-maternal aunt by the mother (or the mother’s half-sister by her 
mother), and the maternal aunts of fathers or mothers. 


Class second, 
Or such as are Prohibited by reason of Affinity, and of these 
there are four degrees. | 
The first are the mothers of wives, and their grandmothers by the 
father’s or mother’s side. The second are the daughters of a wife or 
of her children, how low soever ... The third degree of affinity 
comprises the wife of a son, or of a son’s son, or of a daughter’s 
son, how low soever. . .; but the wife of an adopted son is not 
prohibited to the adopted father. The fourth degree are the wives 
of fathers and of grandfathers, whether on the father’s or mother’s 
side, and how high soever. And with all these marriage or sexual 
intercourse is prohibited for ever. 


Class third, 

Or women who are Prohibited by reason of Fosterage. 

Every woman prohibited by reason of consanguinity and affinity is 
prohibited also by fosterage, as will be explained in the Book of 
Fosterage. 

Class fourth, 

Or women who cannot be lawfully joined together. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 667 


Second, with regard to the joining together of women who are 
relatives. It is not lawful to cohabit with two sisters, either in 
marriage or by right of property, whether they be sisters by con- 
sanguinity or fosterage. The general principle with regard to the 
joining together of women is, that it is not lawful to join together 
any two women, who, if we suppose one of them on whichever side 
to be a male, could not lawfully intermarry by reason of consan- 
guinity or fosterage. Hence it is not lawful to join a woman with 
her paternal or maternal aunt by consanguinity or fosterage, but it is 
lawful to join a woman with her husband’s daughter. 


The rules above-mentioned with regard to two sisters apply equally 
to all other near relatives who cannot be lawfully joined together in 
connection with a man. And if a man desire to marry one of the 
two, after separating from the other, he is at liberty to do so, pro- 
vided that the separation takes place before consummation ; but if it 
do not take place till after the consummation, he must wait till the 
expiration of both their idduts. 

(In the following paragraph Mr. Baillie explains how the same 
prohibition extends to concubines, and with the same limitation.) 


A Digest of the Moohummedan Law. The Imameea Code. 


Among the consequences of affinity is the prohibition of a wife’s 
sister in conjunction with the wife, or of a wife’s niece in conjunction 
with her without her permission, With such permission the conjunc- 
tion is quite lawful. The paternal or maternal aunt of a wife may 
be taken in conjunction with her, even against the wife’s will. But 
if a man should marry his wife’s niece, whether the daughter of her 
brother or sister, without the wife’s permission, the contract would 
be void. Some of our doctors are of opinion that in such a case the 
wife would have an option, and might either allow the second 
marriage, or cancel it without the cancellation being a divorce. But 
the first opinion, according to which the contract is actually void, is 
the most valid. 


The laws and customs of the various races of mankind out- The pudor 
᾽ He ie τ κα - Saery : 5 naturalis 
side Christianity are of interest as indicating the existence of aouaaed 

a pudor natwralis with regard to unions of very near kin. The by 


1 Page 23 (London, 1869). 


(a) The 
Roman 
Law. 


668 HOLY MATRIMONY 


limits of the present work will not admit of any exhaustive 
research into the manifold legal systems and customary regu- 
lations of non-Christian peoples; but a brief enquiry into the 
provisions of the Roman, the Hindu, and the Musulman 
systems of law will afford instances in very varied com- 
munities of the same general character of feeling, and will 
thus go to shew that the prohibitions of the Mosaic Code, 
which were held by Gop to be no less binding on the Gentiles 
than on the chosen people, are not without their counterpart 
in the instinctive conscience of the race. The Roman and 
the Hindu prohibitions will be instances of the traditions of 
the Aryan stock, while the Musalman Code, not indeed 
entirely independent of the Mosaic, will, with the Mosaic, 
exemplify the provisions which were possible with and ac- 
ceptable to the Semitic peoples. These three particular systems 
are chosen because, while answering this general purpose of 
illustrating a common instinct, they are at the same time of 
practical utility in other directions, the Roman as throwing light 
upon Christian feeling and Christian enactments, and the Hindu 
and Musalman as being of immediate value to residents in India. 

The prohibitions of the Roman Law can be best seen by the 
juxtaposition of the sections bearing on the subject from (1) 
the Lnstitutes of Gaius and (2) the Institutes of Justinian. 

Gaius, probably born in the reign of Hadrian (a.p. 117-138), 
and whose writings may be assigned to the reigns of Antoninus 
Pius (A.D, 138-161), Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (A.D. 161-180), 
and Commodus (A.D. 180-192), may be taken as repeating the 
ancient customary law of the Roman people with such slight 
modifications as had been introduced in historic times. The 
Institutes of Justinian (A.D. 533), as will be seen, reproduce 
the prohibitions of Gaius word for word, only altering them 
where the legislation of the intervening centuries had intro- 
duced changes. These changes had obviously been introduced, 
in part at least, as a result of Christian influences; and a 
comparison of the two texts enables us at once to state 
(1) the original Roman Law on the subject while as yet un- 
touched by Christian feeling, and (2) the result of the influence 
of the first five centuries of Christianity upon that law. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 669 


The prohibitions of Gaius may be summarised as follows : 
(a) Consanguinity. 
1. Ascendants and descendants in whatsover degree. 


2. Collaterals as follows: 
G.) Brother and sister (whole or half). 
(ii.) Unele and sister’s daughter. 
(11.) Nephew and aunt (whether father’s or mother’s 
sister). 
(8) Affinity. 
A man and his 

1 { 1. Mother-in-law 


is as in place of the mother. 
1. Step-mother 


Ϊ 111. Daughter-in-law 


as in place of a daughter. 
iv. Step-daughter ᾿ " > 


(y) Adoption. 
1. Ascendants and descendants, 
the prohibition remaining even after the adoption 
has been removed by emancipation. 


2. Collaterals, as under Consanguinity, 
but in all such cases of collaterals the prohibition 
only holds so long as the adoption holds.1 


Under the head of consanguinity this list omits one prohibi- 
tion of the ancient customary law of Rome, viz., the prohibition 
of the marriage of an uncle with a niece who is the daughter 
of his brother. This prohibition had been removed in favour 
of the Emperor Claudius, who wished to marry his niece 
Agrippina. The concession was by no means in accordance 
with the sentiments of the people, and in the time of 
Diocletian and Maximian (A.D. 295) was no longer recognised.? 
Constantius and Constans (A.D. 342)? declared such unions to 
be abominable, and visited them with capital punishment. 
The marriage of an uncle with a niece who was the daughter 
of his sister was at no time recognised by the Roman law. 





1 Gait Institutiones, i. §§ 58-64. 
2 Codex Justinianus V. iv. 17. 
3 Codex Theodositanus III. xii. 1. 


670 HOLY MATRIMONY 


It appears also from Ulpian that under the ancient law of 
Rome the marriage of first cousins was unknown.' It gradually 
came to be. permitted, but in the fourth century was again held 
to be unlawful. Theodosius 1.5 appears to have held it un- 
lawful, but open to dispensation (0. A.D. 384); and by Arcadius 
and Honorius it was stigmatised as incest in A.D. 396 ;° but the 
same emperors made it lawful in A.D. 405,* and their enactment 
is retained in the Code of Justinian. 

As regards marriages of affinity, while the old Roman law 
prohibited marriage with a mother-in-law and with a step- 
mother, with a daughter-in-law and with a step-daughter, 
there was no prohibition of marriage with a brother’s wife, or 
with a wife’s sister. The first prohibition of marriage with a 
deceased wife’s sister is to be found in a law of Constantius II. 
and Constans (A.D. 955), which must almost certainly be 
referred to Christian influences, since the influences of non- 
Christian practice in the Empire appear to have been in no 
way opposed to such marriages. Valentinian, Theodosius, and 
Arcadius (A.D. 393)® repeated the prohibition, which accordingly 
finds place in the Code of Justinian, though it is omitted in the 
Institutes. 

In certain cases Roman usage extended the prohibition of 
marriages of affinity beyond the limitations of the Mosaic Code. 
By that code, as has been seen, a man might not marry any of 
his wife’s relations nearer in blood than he could of his own, 
and similarly a woman with her husband’s relations; but in no 
ease did the prohibition extend to the marriage of the relations 
of the wife with the relations of the husband. In the Roman 
law, however, this limitation did not universally apply. It 
recognised an inferior degree of affinity which could be carried 
on through a second marriage, and which may be styled affinity 





1 Ulpian v. 6. 

2 Codex Theodosianus 111. 10. 1: ““ Exceptis his, quos consobrinorum, hoc est 
quarti gradus, conjunctionem lex triumphalis memoriae patris nostri, exemplo 
indultorum, supplicare non vetavit.” 

3 Codex Theodosianus III. xii. 3. 

4 Codex Justinianus V. 4. 19. 

5 Codex Theodosianus 111, xii. 2. 

6 Codex Justinianus V. 5. 5; see also Codex Theodosianus III. 12. 4. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 671 


of two marriages. Thusif a step-son died and left a widow, the 
step-father was not permitted to marry her. Similarly if a 
woman had a step-daughter, and the step-daughter died, it 
was not open to the woman to marry the step - daughter's 
husband. In both of these cases two marriages intervened 
between the parties; and hence, to use the modern phrase, they 
are said to be barred by “affinity of two marriages.” And it 
is important to put the prohibition in this way, as it was by 
taking it in this way, and then extending the principle, that 
the Eastern churches arrived at their system of prohibition in 
cases of such “affinity of two marriages,’ or “affinity of the 
second degree”; a system of prohibitions unknown to the 
Mosaic Code, and to Western Christendom. But in truth, 
although we may characterise the prohibitions of these mar- 
rlages as grounded on the “affinity of two marriages,’ the 
Roman had in view nothing less than this affinity. His real 
ground of prohibition was not affinity, but the respectus 
parentelae. Persons in the family who stood to one another 
in the relation of ascendants and descendants were barred from 
marriage for the whole term of their lives, even though such 
relationships arose not even from affinity, but only from adop- 
tion, as will presently be noticed; and beyond all doubt it was 
this respectus parentelae, and not the affinity, which was the 
legal principle at the bottom of the prohibition in cases of 
“affinity of two marriages.” In the cases of collaterals, where 
the respectus parentelae did not come in, no such limitations had 
force. 

A class of prohibitions occurs in the law of Rome which is 
not found in the Mosaic code; viz. the prohibition of the 
marriage of all persons related by adoption in any degree 
which would be a bar to marriage if the relationship were by 
consanguinity. There is here, however, a distinction. While 
the marriage of those related by adoption as ascendants and 
descendants is peremptorily barred for life, even though the 
adoption have been brought to an end by the process of 
emancipation, persons who are connected by adoption in 
collateral relationships are only barred from marriage so long 
as the adoption lasts. 


672 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The prohibition of marriage to those related by adoption 
appears to be connected with the Roman principle of the 
patria potestas, or, more generally, with the Aryan view of the 
supreme authority of the house-father. It has some remark- 
able analogies in the Indian system. Whosoever, by coming 
within the sacred circle of the family, was admitted to its 
intimacies, was, as a condition of those intimacies, to be 
debarred from intermarriage, that so the sacredness of family 
life might be preserved from contamination at its source. The 
prohibitions of marriage on the ground of relationship by 
adoption may be described as the extension of prohibition 
from a class of cases in which the natural conscience made 
it imperative, to a class of cases in which circumstances made 
it expedient. 

The principal importance of these prohibitions as regards 
Christian marriage is to be found in the extension, or rather 
transference, of the system to so-called spiritual relationships, 
which, while unknown to Christian antiquity, are already 
found in the Code of Justinian. 

If now we examine the sections quoted from the Institutes 
of Justinian, the prohibitions may be thus classified: 

(a) Consanguinity. 

1. Ascendants and descendants in whatsoever degree. 
2. Collaterals as follows: 
(i.) Brother and sister (whole or half). 
(ii.) Uncle and niece (whether brother’s or sister’s — 
daughter). 
Uncle and grand-niece (whether brother’s or 
sister’s grand-daughter). 
(iii.) Nephew and aunt (father’s or mother’s sister). 
Nephew and great-aunt (paternal or maternal). 


(3) Affinity. 
A man and his 
1 | i. Mother-in-law 


in pl f th 
ἘΠΕ mara atts ᾿ as in place o e mother 


1 Codex Justinianus, V. 4. 26. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 673 


111. Daughter-in-law 
Zi Step-daughter as in place of a daughter, 
v. Daughter of divorced wife 


3. (Code of Justinian) i. Wife's sister 


i. ‘ as in place of a sister. 
1. Brother’s wife ; P 


(y) Adoption. 
1. Ascendants and descendants, 
the prohibition remaining even after the adop- 
tion has been removed by emancipation. 
2. Collaterals, as under Consanguinity, 
but in all cases of collaterals, the prohibition 
only holds so long as the adoption holds.? 


It appears, therefore, that as compared with the provisions 
of the Institutes of Gaius, the legislation of Justinian has 
restored the ancient law of Rome as regards the marriage of 
uncle and niece, and has added, doubtless under Christian 
influences, the prohibition of marriage with the wife’s sister 
and with the brother's wife. As compared with the Anglican 
table, the legislation of Justinian is deficient as regards pro- 
hibitions of marriage between uncle and niece by affinity, and 
nephew and aunt by affinity; and travels outside the table 
in the provisions as to relationship by adoption. 

For the Hindu law of marriage it is sufficient to cite the ὦ) The 
careful statement of Professor Gooroodass Banerjee in the ae 
valuable Tagore Lectures for 1878, entitled The Hindu Law of 
Marriage and Stridhan. The passage printed above not only 
gives Professor Banerjee’s summing-up, itself of great authority, 
but refers to the ultimate texts, the Code of Manu, the Yajna- 
valkya, and the Udvahatatiwa. Especially worthy of notice is 
the explanation of sapinda-relationship, which is quoted from 
the celebrated commentator Vijnaneswar. 

The relationships of consanguinity which present a bar to 
intermarriage may, for comparison with the Roman system, be 
classified as follows : 

1. Ascendants and descendants within the sixth degree 
(otherwise all possible ascendants and descendants). 





1 Justinian, Znstitutes, i. 10. 
ex 


674 HOLY MATRIMONY 


2. Collaterals who are descended from paternal or maternal 
ancestors within the sixth degree (up to the seventh 
person). This, according to the Roman computation, 
in the case of two persons equally removed from the 
common ancestor, would bar intermarriage to the 
twelfth degree. 


As regards unions of affinity, one-half of the number are at 
once cut away by the law or custom which hinders the re- 
marriage of widows.!. Of the remaining half several unions 
are barred, but Indian lawyers do not recognise affinity as the 
principle of such prohibition, but refer in its place to the 
principle of sapinda-relationship. 

The theory of sapinda-relationship is highly interesting. 
According to Vijnaneswar all are, strictly speaking, sapindas, 
who have in them particles of one and the same body. If 
therefore we substitute the biblical narrative for the traditions 
of Hinduism, all mankind are, strictly speaking, in sapinda- 
relationship with one another, as being all descended in the 
process of human generation from Adam and Eve, and so 
having particles of their bodies, For practical purposes, how- 
ever, sapindas are not held to exist for more than a specified 
number of degrees; for some purposes six, for others only 
three. So far it will be seen that sapinda-relationship 15 
coincident with consanguinity. To be “of one blood” is rather 
expressed by the native of India through the phrase “having 
particles of one body.” 

But sapinda-relationship is not confined to consanguinity. 
Husband and wife themselves, who in the language of Genesis 
are one flesh, are with the Indian lawyer sapindas, “because 
they together beget one body (the son).” In other words, 
sapinda-relationship is no less established by common offspring 
than by common ancestors. A very remarkable case of sapinda- 
relationship is that of the wives of two brothers. According 
to the computations of the Mosaic Code, and of Western 
Christendom, the wives of brothers are not connected with 
each other by affinity, though by the Roman law and by the 





1 The case of the Levirate custom has been already considered. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 675 


Canon law of the Eastern churches they are said to be related 
by “affinity of the second degree.” In the Hindu law, however, 
the wives of brothers are sapindas to each other, because their 
two sons have a common grandfather. Thus the legal explana- 
tion of the prohibition has here first to dip to the offspring, and 
from the offspring to rise to the common ancestor. 

Legal theories are commonly subsequent in point of time to 
the customs which they explain, and to this rule the theory 
of sapinda-relationship is probably no exception. Professor 
Banerjee finds the historical explanation of the Hindu system 
in the old Indian, or rather Aryan, custom, which assembled 
several generations under the roof of one “ house-father,” and so 
made prohibition of marriage between the various members of 
the household a necessary condition of household purity. “The 
rule when once established for the paternal side was extended 
to the maternal side by analogy.” 

Whatever theory may best account for the Hindu system of 
prohibitions, it is indisputable that they do not readily fall in 
with the theory of affinity laid down in the Mosaic Code. A 
man may not marry his step-mother’s brother’s daughter, nor 
again his step-mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter; but, as 
in the old Roman system, there is no prohibition of marriage 
with a wife’s sister, with her niece, or with her aunt. 

The Hindu prohibitions on the ground of artificial relation- 
ship, as adoption or fosterage, need not detain us. 

For the Mohammedan law Mr. Baillie’s Digests will be (ἡ The 
sufficient authority. According to the law of the Sunnis the Mop 
prohibitions are az follows: law. 

(a) Consanguinity. 

1. All ascendants and descendants. 
2. Collaterals. 
i. Sister (whole or half). 
1. Female issue of brother or sister, how low soever. 
in, Aunts. 
(a) Paternal. 
a. Father’s whole sister. 


β. Father's half-sister by his mother. 
2x 2 


Prohibi- 
tions of 
affinity in 
all three 
systems, 
but the 


676 HOLY MATRIMONY 


y. Father’s half-sister by his father. 
Also the paternal aunts of father and grandfather, 
mother and grandmother. 
(b) Maternal. 
a. Mother’s whole sister. 
8. Mother’s half-sister by her mother. 
y. Mother’s half-sister by her father. 
Also the maternal aunts of father or mother. 
(3) Affinity. 
1. Wives’ female ascendants and descendants. 
2. Sons’ wives, or wives of male issue how low soever. 
3. Fathers’ wives, or wives of male ascendants how 
high soever. 
(y) Fosterage 
is the same bar as birth in all the relationships of 
apparent consanguinity and affinity. 
(6) Women who may not be lawfully joined together. 
Two sisters, or any two women, who, if we suppose 
one of them a male, might not marry one another. 


The prohibitions on the ground of consanguinity are thus 
sufficiently thorough. The principle of affinity is more clearly 
recognised than in the Aryan systems. It is not, however, 
extended to collaterals, except during the joint lifetime of the 
two persons whose relationship to one another creates affinity 
with the third person. A man may not have as his wives at 
the same time either two sisters, or any two women so nearly 
related that they might not marry one another if one of them 
were a man. But there is no prohibition of marriage with a 
deceased wife’s sister, or with her niece, or with her aunt; or 
again with a deceased brother’s wife. The prohibitions on 
the artificial ground of fosterage are held by the Musulman 
to be valid in all cases where an analogous relationship by 


consanguinity or affinity would prove a bar. 


The prohibitions of the Roman, of the Hindu, and of the 
Musulman systems are examples, which might be indefinitely 
multiphed, of the existence in the race of a deeply-seated 
sense that the marriage of too near kin is a thing unholy. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 677 


The sense is strongest and most controlling with regard to grounds 
near relationships of consanguinity. In all three of the Ae, 
systems, however, there are prohibitions which bar the mar- ata 
riage of persons related by affinity. It is not, however, by the 
necessarily on the ground of the affinity of the parties in the Con a 
Mosaic sense that such prohibitions are made. They are to be 

found alike in the Roman, the Hindu, and the Musulman 
systems, as regards the marriages of all ascendants and descen- 

dants, as for instance that of a man with his step-mother, or 

with his step-granddaughter; but no one of the three systems 
expresses any strong feeling with regard to the marriages of 
persons related by collateral affinity, as for instance, the 
marriage of a man with his deceased wife’s sister, or with his 
deceased brother’s wife. The Musulman rules about women 

who may not be joined together in a polygamous marriage are 
remarkable in this connexion, as indicating a sense of the 
shamefulness of such unions, strong enough to be operative 
while all the parties are alive, and when practised therefore in 

a polygamous household, but not strong enough to be operative 

when the person who is the link of relationship is dead. These 

rules suggest also the interesting question, which cannot be 
undertaken here, as to whether they represent an ancient 
Semitic tradition, with which it would be possible to connect 

Lev. xvui. 18, or whether they are in fact merely an expansion 

of Jewish practice as known to the Arabs. 


3. THE CHURCH IN HIsToRY., 
(i.) Zo the Conversion of Constantine. 
AUTHORITIES. 
Minucius Fetix, cap. 9.1 
Et de convivio notum est, passim omnes loquuntur, id etiam 
Cirtensis? nostri testatur oratio: ad epulas solemni die coeunt, cum 
omnibus liberis, sororibus, matribus, sexus omnis hominis et omnis 
aetatis: illic, post multas epulas, ubi convivium caluit, et incestae 
libidinis ebrietatis fervor exarsit, canis qui candelabro nexus est, jactu 
offulae ultra spatium lineae qua vinctus est, ad impetum et saltum 


1 Migne’s Ed. p. 262. 2 M. Cornelius Fronto, 


678 HOLY MATRIMONY 


provocatur: sic everso et exstincto conscio lumine, impudentibus 
tenebris nexus infandae cupiditatis involvunt per incertum sortis; et 
si non omnes opera, conscientia tamen pariter incesti, quoniam voto 
universorum appetitur quicquid accidere potest in actu singulorum. 


Gols 


Ad nos pudorem non facie sed mente praestamus. Unius 
matrimonii vinculo libenter inhaeremus, cupiditate procreandi aut 
unam scimus aut nullam. Convivia non tantum pudica colimus, sed 
et sobria: nec enim indulgemus epulis, aut convivium mero ducimus: 
sed gravitate hilaritatem temperamus, casto sermone, corpore castiore ; 
plerique inviolati corporis virginitate perpetua fruuntur potuis quam 
gloriantur: tantum denique abest incesti cupido, ut nonnullis rubori 
sit etiam pudica conjunctio. 

ORIGEN. 
Against Celsus, vi. 27.? 
εν a 7 3 / ἋΣ a Ἂς Ἀ 

Καὶ δοκεῖ μοι παραπλήσιον ᾿Ιουδαίοις πεποιηκέναι, τοῖς κατὰ τὴν 
ἀρχὴν τῆς τοῦ χριστιανισμοῦ διδασκαλίας κατασκεδάσασι δυσφημίαν 
τοῦ λόγου" ὡς ἄρα καταθύσαντες παιδίον μεταλαμβάνουσιν αὐτοῦ τῶν 
σαρκῶν" καὶ πάλιν, ὅτι οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ λόγου, τὰ τοῦ σκότου πράττειν 
βουλόμενοι, σβεννύουσι μὲν τὸ φῶς, ἕκαστος δὲ τῇ 

μενοι, μ ς, ς Τῇ παρατυχοῦσῃ 
/ 4 re Me ’ Ν / {2 
μίιγνῦυται. Ητις δυσφημία παραλόγως πάλαι μεν πλείστων οσων 
> , td Ν 5 / “A / μὲ a 7 > 
ἐκράτει, πείθουσα τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους τοῦ λόγου, ὅτι τοιοῦτοί εἰσι 
χριστιανοί" καὶ νῦν δὲ ἔτι ἀπατᾷ τινας, ἀποτρεπομένους διὰ τὰ τοιαῦτα 


ΠῚ 5» ΄ ε , , “ ᾿ Ν ΄ 
καν εις Κοινωνιαν ἁπλουστέραν λόγων 1) KELV T pos χριστιανοῦυς. 


TERTULLIAN. 
Apology, ch. 8.3 

Tum ille: infans tibi necessarius, adhue tener, qui nexiat mortem, 
qui sub cultro tuo rideat; item panis, quo sanguinis jurulentiam 
colligas; praeterea candelabra et lucernae, et canes aliqui et offulae, 
quae illos ad eversionem luminum extendant, ante omnia cum matre 
et sorore tua venire debebis. 

Ore Bh 

Nos ab isto eventu diligentissima et fidelissima castitas sepsit, 
quantumque ab stupris et ab omni post matrimonium excessu, tantum 
et ab incesti casu tuti sumus. Quidam multo securiores totam vim 
hujus erroris virgine continentia depellunt, senes pueri. 


1 Migne’s Ed. p. 337. Ὁ Lad Stomn, ἡ τ ΠΡΌΣ 
3 Ibid. p. 313. 4. [bid. p. 326. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 679 


EUSEBIUS. 
Ecclesiastical History, iv. 7.1 
Ταύτῃ δ᾽ οὖν ἐπιπλεῖστον συνέβαινε τὴν περὶ ἡμῶν παρὰ τοῖς τότε 
> / ε / fan 9 / ff ε ERS 7 
ἀπίστοις ὑπόνοιαν δυσσεβῆ Kal ἀτοπωτάτην διαδίδοσθαι, ws δὲ ἀθεμίτοις 
Ὁ , Sas Ν / 5 ft “ γ᾽ 
πρὸς μητέρας καὶ ἀδελφὰς μίξεσιν ἀνοσίαις τε τροφαῖς χρωμένων. 


TERTULLIAN. 
Against Marcion, iv. 34.? 

Joannes enim retundens Herodem, quod adversus legem uxorem 
fratris sui defuncti duxisset, habentis filiam ex illa (non alias hoe 
permittente, imo et praecipiente lege, quam si frater illiberis deces- 
serit, ut a fratre ipsius et ex costa ipsius supparetur semen illa) 
conjectus in carcerem fuerat, ab eodem Herode postmodum et occisus. 
Facta igitur mentione Joannis, Dominus, et utique successus exitus 
ejus, illicitorum matrimoniorum et adulterii figuras jaculatus est in 
Herodem ; adulterum pronuntians etiam qui dimissam a viro duxerit ; 
quo magis impietatem Herodis oneraret, qui non minus morte quam 
repudio dimissam a viro duxerat ; et hoc fratre habente ex illa filiam, 
et vel eo nomine illicite; ex libidinis, non ex legis instinctu; ac 
propterea propheten quoque assertorem legis occiderat. 


Against Marcion, v. 7.8 

Non defendo secundum legem Creatoris displicuisse illum, qui 
mulierem patris sui habuit, communis et publicae religionis secutus 
sit disciplinam. 

CaNONES APOSTOLORUM.# 

ὁ. 16. Ὃ δυσὶ γάμοις συμπλακεὶς μετὰ τὸ βαπτίσμα, ἢ παλλακὴν 
κτησάμενος, οὐ δύναται εἶναι ἐπίσκοπος, ἢ πρεσβύτερος, ἢ διάκονος, ἢ 
ὅλως τοῦ καταλόγου τοῦ ἱερατικοῦ. 

c. 17. Ὃ χήραν λαβὼν, ἢ ἐκβεβλημένην, ἢ ἑταίραν, ἢ οἰκέτιν, ἢ 
τὴν ἐπὶ σκηνῆς, οὐ δύναται εἶναι ἐπίσκοπος, ἢ πρεσβύτερος, ἢ διάκονος, 
ἢ ὅλως τοῦ καταλόγου τοῦ ἱερατικοῦ. 

ὁ. 18, Ὃ δύο ἀδελφὰς ἀγαγόμενος, ἢ ἀδελφιδῆν, οὐ δύναται εἶναι 
κληρικός. 

Councit oF ΕἼΙΒΕΗΙΒ. ὅ 


Canon 61. 
Si quis post obitum uxoris suae, sororem ejus duxerit, et ipsa fuerit 
fidelis, quinquennium a communione placuit abstineri; nisi forte dari 
pacem velocius necessitas coegerit infirmitatis. 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 320. 3. Ibid. pp. 443, 444. ὃ Tbid. p. 486. 
* Mansi, tom. i. pp. 32, 33. 5 Tbid, tom. ii. p. 16. 


The legal 
systems 
under 
which the 
early 
Christians 
lived were 


(1) the 
Roman 
and (2) the 
Jewish. 


680 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Canon 66. 


Si quis praevignam suam duxerit uxorem, eo quod sit incestus, 
placuerit nec in fine dandam esse ei communionem. 


Counc or ANCYRA. 
Canon 25.1 
Μνηστευσάμενός τις κόρην, προσεφθάρη τῇ ἀδελῴφῃ αὐτῆς, ὡς Kal 
> 7 > f. ” Ν Ν \ Ν ἴω ες Ν rc 
ἐπιφορέσαι ἀυτήν. "ἔγημε δὲ τὴν μνηστὴν μετὰ ταῦτα. “H δὲ φθαρεῖσα 
3 7] «ες 7 > 7 > / an 3 Ν 
ἀπήγξατο. Oi συνειδότες ἐκελεύσθησαν ἐν δεκαετίᾳ δεχθῆναι εἰς τοὺς 


A \ Ν ε ΄ ΄ 
συνεστωτας, KATA TOVS ὡρισμένους βαθμούς. 


Councit oF ΝΕΟ-(ΔΕΒΑΒΒΑ. 
Canon 2.3 
Γυνὴ ἐὰν γήμηται δύο ἀδελφοῖς ἐξωθείσθω μέχρι θανάτου. Πλὴν ἐν 
θανάτῳ, διὰ τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν, εἰποῦσα, ὡς ὑγιάνασα λύσει τὸν γάμον 
[72 % , Ψ Ν οὖ « > > 7 ’ὔἢ 3 
ἕξει τὴν μετάνοιαν. Hav δὲ τελευτήσῃ 1) γυνὴ ἐν τοιούτῳ γάμῳ οὖσα 


ἤτοι ὁ ἀνὴρ, δυσχερὴς τῷ μείναντι ἡ μετάνοια. 


In reviewing the attitude of the early Christian Church 
towards the marriages of persons related to one another, it 
is essential to consider, as in the other marriage questions, 
what were the systems of law and the national habits with 
which the Christians of the first ages had to deal. 

These were mainly the systems and the habits (1) of the 
Roman Empire, and (2) of the Jewish people. The law of 
Rome, which in this matter probably represented in the main 
the traditional rules of the Aryan race, retained, as has been 
seen, a deep abhorrence of the most offensive unions of near 
kin, and was as entirely clear on the unlawfulness of certain 
unions of affinity, as on the unlawfulness of certain unions 
of consanguinity. The general agreement in this matter of 
the law of Rome with the Divinely sanctioned law of a 
Semitic people is of the utmost significance as indicating the 
existence of one tradition of humanity. But it is also of the 
ereatest importance as indicating the platform from which 
the Christian necessarily set out. Even if he would have 
disclaimed the binding character of the Mosaic legislation, 





1 Mansi, tom. 11, p. 520. 2 Ibid, Ὁ. 542. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 681 


he could not for very shame be less bound than his 
heathen fellow-citizens of the Roman Empire. Consequently No _ 
no question could well arise till at least that point was reached Seset 


arises till 
where the Roman law and the Mosaic code parted company, or the Roman 


: : P law and the 
where both of these systems were agreed in no longer imposing Mosaic 
restrictions. The case of the deceased wife’s sister 1s an eile: 
illustration of one or other of these cases. 

The Roman law, like the Jewish, had no hesitation in 
condemning such unions of affinity as the marriage of a man 
with his daughter-in-law, or with his step-daughter. It did 
not forbid his marriage with his wife’s sister. The practice Case of the 
of the Jews, whatever may be the true reading of their law, saree 
was equally indulgent as to this particular relationship. It siste™ 
naturally, therefore, in course of time came up as a question 
for the Christian Church whether marriage with a wife’s sister 
should be permitted, and we shall presently see how the 
question was decided. But of all those relationships which 
were included in the prohibitions of both codes there could 
hardly be, and, so far as the evidence goes, there was not, 
any question. 

There was another reason which could not fail to influence 
the practice of the Christians in this matter, and to make them Influence 
anxious to avoid all appearance of evil, The Christian name, οἱ ἴμΘ 


slander 
wherever it was found throughout the Empire, was branded as to the 


with the stigma of revolting follies and awful crimes, which the pane 
popular voice persisted in attaching to it. The worship of the 2mong the 
ass’s head, with the murder of an infant and the drinking of its 
blood, did not exhaust these malignant calumnies. It was 
persistently stated that “(dipodean unions (Οἰδιποδείας 
μίξεις) ᾿ formed a prominent feature of the Christian orgies. 
Some passages which have been quoted above will shew at 
once the prevalence and the wildness of the charge. According 
to Minucius Felix, a Christian apologist of the third century 
(? A.D. 234), it was said that the Christians of either sex and 
every age met at night for their secret banquets, persons of 
the nearest relationship to one another being present, and that 
when the banquet was well advanced, and those present were 


inflamed with wine, the practice was to throw some food before 


Tertullian. 


Herod’s 
sin, his 
marriage 
with his 
sister-in- 
law. 


682 HOLY MATRIMONY 


a dog, who was tied to a lamp-stand, in such a way that in 
jumping to secure the food the animal overturned the lamp, 
and that then in the darkness there ensued practices of un- 
speakable lust.1. Athenagoras,? Origen? Tertullian,’ and 
Eusebius,° all testify to the hold which this gross calumny had 
attained. Minucius Felix in denying the charge gives an 
elevated picture of Christian marriage, and coneludes by saying 
that “in fine the desire of incestuous sin is so far removed 
from us, that to some (among us) even the modest union of 
marriage is a cause of blushing.”® It is not difficult to infer 
what must have been the effect upon the Christian mind of so 
foul a calumny, persistently repeated for a long course of years. 
There was probably among the Christians not one honourable 
gentleman or one high-minded lady who could avoid the 
consciousness that calumnies of this character were being 
circulated of him or of her, not only by the common people, 
but by those whose education and position should have taught 
them better. How could such an experience fail to make the 
early Christian abnormally acute in appreciating the very 
beginnings of evil of this particular kind? It is not surely in 
such a soil as the Christianity of the first three centuries that 
unholy alliances of near kin could have readily struck root. 
Passing now to authorities treating directly of the alliances 
of near kindred, we may first notice Tertullian (c. A.D. 200). 
Referring to the case of Herod’s unlawful connexion, he says 
that 5. John the Baptist reproved Herod “because in opposi- 
tion to the law he had married the wife of his deceased 
brother, who had a daughter by her (a union which the law 
permitted only on the one occasion of the brother childless, 
when it even prescribed such a marriage in order that by his 
own brother, and from his own wife, seed might be reckoned 
to the deceased husband).” Tertullian thus, while endeavour- 
ing to explain the Levirate law, has no doubt that the main 





1 Minucius Felix, ὁ. 9. (Migne’s Ed. p. 262.) 

2 Athenagoras, Apology, c. 4. 

3 Origen, Against Celsus, vi. 27. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 1333.) 

4 Tertullian, Apology, ὁ. 8. (Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 313.) 

5 Eusebius, Heclesiastical History, iv. 7. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 320.) 
§ Minucius Felix, ὁ, 31. (Migne’s Ed. p. 337.) 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 683 


reason of §S. John’s reproof was the relationship of affinity. 
He takes it for granted that Philip was dead.' It is true that 
he goes on to argue, with his Montanist fervour against second 
marriages, that our Lord’s denunciation of the man who 
marries a divorced woman as being an adulterer was spoken 
with an intended reference to the case of Herodias, who had 
been divorced, he says, by death. But he has no sort of doubt 
that what S. John the Baptist was attacking was the in- 
cestuous connexion, nor again any doubt that that connexion 
was forbidden by the law. 

The first fifty-one of the Apostolical Canons have been 
assigned to the end of the second or to the third century. 
The canons numbered 16, 17, and 18 are of interest in the 
present enquiry. No one might be advanced to the episcopate, 
to the priesthood, or to the diaconate, who had been twice 
married after baptism.? No one could become a κληρικός who 
had married two sisters.4 The force of the distinction is to 
be found in the word κληρικός, a cleric, which included those 
who were in minor orders as well as bishops, priests, and 
deacons. Thus canon 26 includes readers and singers among 
the clergy. It was provided therefore that, while there were 
certain bars to the higher orders which did not apply to the 
minor orders, marriage with two sisters in succession was a 
bar to even the lowest order of the ministry. Nor is there 
any indication that in this case baptism could be held to have 
made a tabula rasa of the past. Apparently the fact of suc- 
cessive marriage with two sisters, even though the second 
union was entered upon before baptism, barred the entrance 
to the lowest ministrations of the Church. 

The canon, however, must be allowed to give some indica- 
tion of indulgent treatment in the case of the laity. It 
would certainly run counter to the general tone of Christian 
antiquity to infer that if a man had married his wife’s sister 
before baptism, and at his baptism had used his hberty to 


1 According to Josephus (Ant. xviii. 5, § 4) Herodias left Philip for Antipas 
during Philip’s lifetime. 

2 Tertullian, Against Marcion, iv. 34. (Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. pp. 448, 444.) 

3 Canones Apostolorum, c. 16. (Mansi, tom. i. p. 32.) Srl bide 18: 


The 
Apostolical 
Canons. 


No one 
who has 
married 
two sisters 
may 
become a 
cleric. 


684 HOLY MATRIMONY 


put her away, then that union or any other stain which was 
completely past and gone would have been brought against 
him as a bar to the holding of clerical office. It was probably 
not till later, and then only in the West, that it would have 
been a bar to the episcopate itself. If then marriage with a 
deceased wife’s sister was a bar to clerical office, we conclude 
that it was so because the union still continued, or at least 
had continued for some time after baptism. If indeed there 
had been (1) a rule that any persons so united must put 
away the second sister as a condition of baptism, and (2) a 
further rule that any of the faithful contracting such marri- 
ages should be excluded from communion, canon 18 would 
have no application. If therefore canon 18 is to be regarded 
as of practical application, we are led to conclude that in the 
second or third century (1) a convert who presented himself for 
baptism, while retaining his union with the second of two sisters, 
was not refused baptism, but was accepted and allowed to retain 
his wife, or even (2) that a baptized Christian who availed 
hinself of the facilities of the secular law was not excommuni- 
cated for doing so, or (3) that both these cases were suffered. 

It appears highly probable that at first some laxity in the 
case of the deceased wife’s sister would be suffered. The 
roman law allowed such unions: the Jewish practice allowed 
them no less: and the Christian Church had as yet framed no 
table of prohibited degrees, or passed any resolution on the 
subject. A natural shrinking led to the exclusion of all persons 
who had contracted such unions from any share in the conduct 
of Divine service, but there probably the restrictions of the 
earliest ages came to an end. In the ordinary development of 
discipline the recurrence of cases, which, while they had not 
been expressly prohibited, still shocked the Christian spirit, 
would lead to enquiry, to united deliberation, and to authori- 
tative decision; and this would seem to be what actually 
occurred. At the close of the period under review we find 
that the councils of Eliberis and of Ancyra both make reference 
to eases of the connexion of aman with two sisters; and the 
case of the marriage of a woman with two brothers is dealt 
with by the Council of Neo-Caesarea. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 685 


In the 61st canon of the Council of Eliberis (bet. A.D, Council of 
306 and 324) it was enacted that if a man married his ice 


deceased wife’s sister, both parties being Christians, he was to oe 
be excluded from communion for five years, but that in case of with 
grave sickness the term might be abridged.! aeceaac 

This canon is remarkable as indicating that, subject to sister. 
penalty, the union of a man with his deceased wife’s sister was Subject to 
still endured by the Chureh. The Christian sense of the ae 
unfitness of such unions was indeed no longer content with papa 
merely excluding those involved in them from the ministries of 
the Church; they were to undergo five years of penance; but 
there is no hint of any obligation to bring the union to an end 
as a necessary condition of reconciliation. 

In the 66th canon marriage with a step-daughter was to be 
punished by exclusion from communion even at the last, 
“because it 15 mcest.”* This offence, which thus appears to 
have required attention in at least one case, is thus visited 
with the extreme penalty of the Church. As it was a case no 
less forbidden by the secular law than by Christian feeling, no 
question would be likely to arise with regard to it. It was a 
heinous crime, and had simply to be visited with the worst of 
punishments. At the same time it should not be overlooked 
that the union thus condemned as incest was one of affinity 
only. 

The first Synod of Ancyra is usually assigned to a.p. 314. 

The last of its twenty-five canons legislates for a particular First 
case which had arisen. A certain man had espoused a damsel pee 
whose sister he afterwards seduced. He then married the first 
betrothed. On this the seduced sister hanged herself. The Case of 
sentence was that those who were in collusion in this matter ara 
(of συνείδοτες) Were to undergo penance for ten years In the sisters. 
various grades before they could be received among the 
consistentes. The punishment is severe, but the complication of 

the incest with desertion and the causing of suicide makes it 
difficult to estimate exactly the sense of the council as to the 
sinfulness of the connexion considered in its own inherent 


character alone. Nor is it clear whether the connexion was 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 16, 2 [bid. 


First 
Council 
of Neo- 
Caesarea. 


A woman 
who 
marries 
two 
brothers to 
be excluded 
from 
communion 
till death. 


686 HOLY MATRIMONY 


understood to be brought to an end, or whether, subject to the 
penance imposed, 1t was suffered to continue.t 

The first council of Neo-Caesarea (A.D. 315) in its 2nd canon 
decreed that a woman who should marry two brothers was to 
be excluded from communion till death. If on her deathbed 
she expressed her resolution to break off the connexion in the 
event of her recovery, she might be communicated. If either 
party to such a connexion died while it continued, the surviving 
partner, presumably as one who had not shewed signs of 
repentance so long as the sin could be retained, was to be 
subjected to severe penance before reconciliation.? 

This canon, nearly contemporary as it is with the canons of 
Eliberis and Ancyra, 1s noteworthy as giving the first clear 
intimation that there can be no reconcihation of persons 
incestuously connected so long as the connexion continues. 
This conclusion is arrived at in the case of the husband’s 
brother, a connexion more generally reprobated than that with 
the wife’s sister. 

These citations supply the evidence of the period prior to 
Constantine. They accord with the view already adopted, that 
questions could hardly arise till the point was reached at which 
the secular law was less exacting than the Divine. The two 
cases in which people were found to offend most readily were 
the cases of the wife’s sister, and the brother’s wife, cases not 
included in the prohibitions of the Roman law. 


Gi.) From Constantine to Justinian, 
AUTHORITIES. 
S. Basin. — 
Epistle 199. Canon 23.8 
Περὶ δὲ τῶν δύο ἀδελφὰς γαμούντων, ἢ ἀδελφοῖς δυσὶ γαμουμένων, 
ἐπιστολίδιον ἡμῖν ἐκπεφώνηται, οὗ τὸ ἀντίγραφον ἀπεστείλαμέν σου 
τῇ εὐλαβείᾳ. Ὃ δὲ ἀδελφοῦ ἰδίου γυναῖκα λαβὼν οὐ πρότερον δεχθή- 
σεται πρὶν ἀποστῆναι αὐτῆς. 
Epistle 217. Canon 67.4 
᾿Αδελφομιξία τὸν τοῦ φονέως χρόνον ἐξομολογηθήσεται. 


1 Mansi, tom. ii. p. 520. 2 Ibid. Ὁ. 542. 
3 Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 724. 4 Ibid. p. 805. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 687 


Canon 68. 
Ἥ ἴω 3 tg » > 7ὔ Ψ θ oe 7 5 
ΤΉ 9 αἀπειρημενὴς συγγένειας εις γάμον αν βώπων συστασις. ει 


φωραθείη ἐν ἁμαρτήμασι γεγενημένη, τὰ τῶν μοιχῶν ἐπιτίμια δέξεται. 


Canon 76.1 


ε a ον , \ \ lay xX , ε ~ / 
O QUTOS TVUTOS Και πέρι των TAS νύμφας EQAUT WV λαμβανόντων. 


Canon 78. 
Ὃ δὲ αὐτὸς τύπος κρατείτω Kal ἐπὶ TOV τὰς δύο ἀδελφὰς λαμβανόντων 


> ᾿Ξ 5 μ᾽ Ἂ / / 
εἰς συνοικέσιον εἰ καὶ κατὰ διαφόρους χρόνους. 


Canon 79. 
{ -4 \ rf Tal an id “~ 5 7 “ >] ἴοι «ε , 
Or δὲ ταις μητρυιαις TALS EAUTWV ETT LILALVO [LEVOL τῷ QUT VUTOKELVTAL 


΄ Ὄ AP) aA ¢ A 5 An he 
KGVOVL, ᾳ KQt Ob TALS EQUTWV ἀδελφαῖς ETT LILALVOLLEVOL, 


Epistle 160.? 
᾿Αφίκετο ἡμῖν γράμματα τὴν ἐπιγραφὴν ἔχοντα Διοδώρου, τὰ δὲ 
ἐφεξῆς ἄλλου τινὸς πρέποντα εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ Διοδώρου. Δοκεῖ γάρ μοί 
τις τῶν τεχνικῶν, τὸ σὸν πρόσωπον ὑποδὺς, οὕτως ἑαυτὸν ἀξιόπιστον 
9 “ ἴω r 5 / gy 5 \ € / 3 
ἐθελῆσαι ποιῆσαι τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις. “Os ye, ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπό τινος, εἰ 
θεμιτὸν αὐτῷ πρὸς γάμον ἀγαγέσθαι τῆς γυναικὸς τελευτησάσης τὴν 
3 \ 5 ” \ > / > Ἂν Ν / ” Ἂν 5 \ 
ἀδελφὴν, οὐκ ἔφριξε τὴν ἐρώτησιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πράως ἤνεγκε τὴν ἀκοὴν, 
καὶ τὸ ἀσελγὲς ἐπιθύμημα πάνυ γενναίως καὶ ἀγωνιστικῶς συγκατέπραξεν. 
Εἰ μὲν οὖν παρῆν μοι τὸ γράμμα, αὐτὸ ἂν ἀπέστειλα, καὶ ἐξήρκεις σαυτῷ 
τε ἀμῦναι καὶ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ: ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ δείξας πάλιν ἀφείλετο, καὶ ὥσπερ 
- θ᾽ ε “ / ἮΝ ie Neo > lal ” 
τι τρόπαιον καθ’ ἡμῶν περιέφερε, κεκωλυκότων TO ἐξ ἀρχῆς, ἔγγραφον 
” 4 Ν 5 / 5 I lal “ ἊΝ oS ὮΣΕ lal 
ἔχειν λέγων τὴν ἐξουσίαν" ἐπέστειλα νῦν σοι ὥστε διπλῇ TH χειρὶ ἡμᾶς 
5 Toad » \ Ων te 5 Ta / x I > ame 3 \ Tad 
ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸν νόθον ἐκεῖνον λόγον, καὶ μηδεμίαν αὐτῷ ἰσχὺν καταλιπεῖν, 
“ Nie or / fe / Ν 5 / 
iva μὴ ἔχῃ βλάπτειν ῥᾳδίως τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας. 
Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν, ὃ μέγιστον ἐπὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἐστὶ, τὸ παῤ ἡμῖν ἔθος, 
ὃ ἔχομεν προβάλλειν, νόμου δύναμιν ἔχον, διὰ τὸ ὑφ᾽ ἁγίων ἀνδρῶν 
Ν x ε » lal Lal Ἦν “ 7 3 9.4 
τοὺς θεσμοὺς ἡμῖν παραδοθῆναι. Totto δὲ τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν" ἐάν τις, 
7 5 eA yh x 5 7 \ “ 5 “ / 
πάθει ἀκαθαρσίας ποτὲ κρατηθεὶς, ἐκπέσῃ πρὸς δυεῖν ἀδελφῶν κοινωνίαν, 
, , ε μὲ a) an θ᾽ oA > 45 ἊΝ hg yt 7 
μήτε γάμον ἡγεῖσθαι τοῦτον, μηθ’ ὅλως εἰς “ExxAnocias πλήρωμα 
παραδέχεσθαι πρότερον, ἢ διαλῦσαι αὐτοὺς ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων. “ὥστε εἰ καὶ 
\ {2 5 re 5 3 Ἂ ἂν ” a \ an nN Ἂ 
μηδὲν ἕτερον εἰπεῖν ἦν, ἐξήρκει τὸ ἔθος πρὸς τὴν τοῦ καλοῦ φυλακήν. 
Ν \ ς ay > Ν / 5 
“Krew δὲ ὃ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν γράψας, ἐπιχειρήματι κιβδήλῳ κακὸν 
τοσοῦτον ἐπειράθη τῷ βίῳ ἐπαγαγεῖν, ἀνάγκη μηδὲ ἡμᾶς τῆς ἐκ τῶν 
λογισμῶν βοηθείας ὑφέσθαι" καίτοι γε ἐπὶ τῶν σφόδρα ἐναργῶν μείζων 
» \ nan ΄ ε “ἐν , 
ἐστὶ τοῦ λόγου ἢ wap’ ἑκάστου πρόληψις. 





1 Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 808. 7 Tbid. pp. 621, sqq. 


688 HOLY MATRIMONY 


a oe a ra > ~ > > 
Γέγραπται, φησὶν, ἐν τῷ Λευϊτικῷ : Γυναῖκα ex’ ἀδελῴῃ αὐτῆς ov 
, » ΄ > ΄ \ 3 ΄ ΑΝ 2.3 peel αν 
λήψῃ ἀντίζηλον, ἀποκαλύψαι τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην αὐτῆς ἐπ’ GUTH, ETL 
ζώ 5 ἴω Δῆλ 67; > ao 7ὔ ἫΝ / 4 A 
WONS αὐτῆς. nrov δὴ οὖν ἐκ τούτου εἶναί φησιν, OTL συγχωρεῖται 
an an A ’ 
λαμβάνειν τελευτησάσης. Llpds δή τοῦτο πρῶτον μὲν ἐκεῖνο ἐρῶ: ὅτι 
ὅσα ὃ νόμος λέγει, τοῖς ἐν TH νόμῳ λαλεῖ" ἐπεὶ οὕτω γε καὶ περιτομῇ» 
2 Ἂς Ἐν 7 Ρ̓ x 3 “ , e ze > Ν \ a 
καὶ Σαββάτῳ, Kat ἀποχῇ βρωμάτων ὑποκεισόμεθα. Ov yap δὴ, ἐὰν 
¢ “ la Tad PS. A 7 an 
μέν TL εὕρωμεν συντρέχον ἡμῶν ταῖς ἡδοναῖς, TH ζυγῷ τῆς δουλείας TOV 
7 «ε X; «ε θή Ἂ Σ΄" δέ κε Ν la) / id € 
νόμου ἑαυτοὺς ὑποθήσομεν᾽ ἐὰν δέ Te φανῃ βαρὺ TOV νομίμων, TOT 
πρὸς τὴν ἐν Χριστῷ ἐλευθερίαν ἀποδραμούμεθα. ᾿Ηρωτήθημεν εἰ 
γέγραπται λαμβάνειν γυναῖκα ἐπ’ ἀδελφῃ. Εἴπομεν, ὅπερ ἀσφαλὲς 
4 ἴω Ν > Ν a 5 / ἫΝ 5) > nw lal » Χ 40 
ἡμῖν καὶ ἀληθὲς, ὅτι ov γέγραπται. Τὸ δ᾽ ἐκ τῆς τοῦ ἀκολούθου 
ἐπιφορᾶς, τὸ σιωπηθὲν συλλογίζσθαι νομοθετοῦντός ἐστιν, οὐ τὰ τοῦ 
7 re " 5 Ν ao 3 , “a β x / Ἂ “~ 
νόμου λέγοντος" ἐπεὶ οὕτω ye ἐξέσται τῷ βουλομένῳ κατατολμῆσαι 
By ἴων 9 
καὶ ἔτι ζώσης τῆς γυναικὸς λαμβάνειν τὴν ἀδελφήν. Τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ 
a / Ne ee Sie of ε ΄, ΄ \ \ 5) 
τοῦτο σόφισμα Kat ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνου ἁρμόζει. Leyparta: yap, φησὶν, Οὐ 
λήψῃ ἀντίζηλον, ὡς τήν γε ἔξω τοῦ ζῆλου λαβεῖν οὐκ ἐκώλυσεν. 
‘O δὴ συνηγορῶν τῷ πάθει ἀζηλότυπον εἶναι διοριεῖται τὸ )θος τῶν 
5 Lal > / Ss ἴω 39 a > a 5 , Ν 5 vd 
ἀδελφῶν. ᾿Ανῃρημένης οὖν τῆς αἰτίας, dv ἣν ἀπηγόρευσε τὴν ἀμφοτέρων 
συνοίκησιν, τί τὸ κωλύον ἔσται λαμβάνειν τὰς ἀδελφάς ; ᾿Αλλ’ οὐ 
γέγραπται ταῦτα, φήσομεν. ᾿Αλλ’ οὐδὲ ἐκεῖνα ὥρισται. Ἢ δὲ ἔννοια 
τοῦ ἀκολούθου ὁμοίως ἀμφοτέραις τὴν ἄδειαν δίδωσιν. ἄδει δὲ καὶ 
Ν Ψ Ν Ἂς if an / ΕῚ 7] 5 7ᾳ 
μικρὸν ἐπὶ τὰ κατόπιν τῆς νομοθεσίας ἐπαναδραμόντα, ἀπηλλάχθαι 
πραγμάτων. ”EHouke γὰρ οὐ πᾶν εἶδος ἁμαρτημάτων περιλαμβάνειν ὁ 
θέ Ὁ » ) 5 / > , Ν ἴων 5 te 56 5 ἴω «ε 
νομοθέτης" ἀλλ’ ἰδίως ἀπαγορεύειν τὰ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, ὅθεν ἀπῆρεν ὁ 
=| Ν Ν EY “ / Ν « 7 ΕΙΣ Ἂς 
σραὴλ, καὶ τὰ τῶν Χαναναίων, πρὸς ovs μεθίσταται. ἔχει yap 
og « / aa Ν eee 1 “ 5 7 > ®@ / 
οὕτως ἡ λέξις" Κατὰ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα τῆς Αἰγύπτου, ἐν ἣ παρῳκήσατε 
ἐπ’ αὐτῆς, οὐ ποιήσετε" καὶ κατὰ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα γῆς Χαναὰν, εἰς ἣν 
ἐγὼ εἰσάξω ὑμᾶς ἐκεῖ, οὐ ποιήσετε, καὶ ἐν τοῖς νομίμοις αὐτῶν οὐ πορεύ- 
“ la =) ἊΣ ον Gy, an ε / Nees ΄ὔ 
σεσθε. “ὥστε τοῦτο εἰκός που τὸ εἶδος τῆς ἁμαρτίας μὴ ἐμπολιτεύεσθαι 
τότε παρὰ τοῖς ἔθνεσι" διὸ μηδὲ τῆς er’ αὐτῷ φυλακῆς προσδεηθῆναι 
N ΄, ’ 5. 59 A a: , " nN \ A ΄ 
τὸν νομοθέτην, ἀλλ ἀρκεσθῆναι τῷ ἀδιδάκτῳ ἔθει πρὸς τὴν τοῦ μύσους 
διαβολήν. lds οὖν, τὸ μεῖζον ἀπαγορεύσας, τὸ ἔλαττον ἐσιώπησεν ; 
Ὅτι ἐδόκει πολλοὺς τῶν φιλοσάρκων, πρὸς τὸ ἔτι ζώσαις ἀδελφαῖς 
~ eye 7, A ΄ ε A τ / \ 
συνοικεῖν, TO ὑπόδειγμα βλάπτειν τοῦ πατριάρχου. Ἡμᾶς δὲ τί χρὴ 
AAS τ bE, , A \ ΄ , 
ποιεῖν; Ta γεγραμμένα λέγειν, ἢ τὰ σιωπηθέντα προσεξεργάζξεσθαι ; 
Αὐτίκα τὸ μὴ δεῖν μιᾷ ἑταίρᾳ κεγρῆσθαι έ i υἱὸν ἐ ὲ ϊ 
μὴ μις ρᾳ κεχρῆσθαι πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν ἐν μὲν τοῖς 
7ὔ - 5 he ἣν x γ΄ 7 / Δ 
νόμοις τούτοις οὐ γέγραπται, παρὰ δὲ τῷ ΠΡροφήτῃ μεγίστης κατηγορίας 
)ξί Vio \ Ν Ν Ν Ν \ > Ν δί > 
ἠξίωται. Los γὰρ, φησὶ, καὶ πατὴρ πρὸς τὴν αὐτὴν παιδίσκην εἰσεπο- 
ρεύοντο. Πόσα δὲ εἴδη ἄλλα τῶν ἀκαθάρτων παθῶν τὸ μὲν τῶν 


δαιμόνων διδασκαλεῖον ἐξεῦρεν, ἡ δὲ θεία Τιραφὴ ἀπεσιώπησε, τὸ 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 689 


σεμνὸν ἑαυτῆς ταῖς τῶν αἰσχρῶν ὀνομασίαις καταῤῥυπαινειν οὐχ 
αἱρουμένη, ἀλλὰ γενικοῖς ὀνόμασι τὰς ἀκαθαρσίας διέβαλεν ἡ “Qs καὶ 
ὁ ᾿Απόστολος [Παῦλός φησι" Ilopveia δὲ καὶ ἀκαθαρσία πᾶσα μηδὲ 
>) 7 θ 3’ e lot a θὰ Ψ «ε 7 . a“ nO Ψ Ἂς θ fA 9 £ 
ὀνομαζέσθω ἐν ὑμῖν, καθὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις" τῷ τῆς ἀκαθαρσίας ὀνόματι 
/ “A Seles, a Se z. st \ nN a“ ff 
τάς TE τῶν ἀῤῥένων ἀῤῥητοποιίας Kat Tas TOV θηλειῶν περιλαμβάνων. 
“Ὥστε οὐ πάντως ἡ σιωπὴ ἄδειαν φέρει τοῖς φιληδόνοις. ; 
"Hye δὲ οὐδὲ σεσιωπῆσθαι τὸ μέρος τοῦτό φημι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ 
σφοδρῶς ἀπηγορευκέναι τὸν νομοθέτην. 
Τὸ γὰρ, Οὐκ εἰσελεύ ὸ ΐ ἰκεῖο KOs σου, ἀποκαλύψ 
ὃ γὰρ, Οὐκ εἰσελεύσῃ πρὸς πάντα οἰκεῖον σαρκός σου, ἀποκα αι 
ἀσχημοσύνην αὐτῶν, ἐμπεριεκτικόν ἐστι καὶ τούτου τοῦ εἴδους τῆς 
οἰκειότητος. Τί γὰρ ἂν γένοιτο οἰκειότερον ἀνδρὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ γυναικὸς, 
μᾶλλον δὲ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σαρκός ; Οὐ γὰρ ἔτι εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλὰ σὰρξ μία. 
Ae) \ a“ NS e 5 \ Ν x a“ 3 a 5: 7] 
στε διὰ τῆς γυναικὸς 4 ἀδελφὴ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς οἰκειότητα 
᾽7ὔ Ω % 7 Ἂς 3 λή δὲ θ fe nan 
μεταβαΐνει. ς γὰρ μητέρα γυναικὸς οὐ λήψεται, οὐδὲ θυγατέρα τῆς 
γυναικὺς, διότι μηδὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ μητέρα, μηδὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ θμγατέρα" 
οὕτως οὐδ’ ἀδελφὴν γυναικὸς, διότι μηδὲ ἀδελφὴν ἑαυτοῦ. Καὶ τὸ 
> Ψ JAN “ \ ᾿ Vs lal 9 ig oO 5 \ rf 
ἀνάπαλιν, οὐδὲ τῇ γυναικὶ ἐξέσται τοῖς οἰκείοις τοῦ ἀνδρὸς συνοικεῖν. 
Κοινὰ γὰρ ἐπ᾿ ἀμφοτέρων τῆς συγγενείας τὰ δίκαια, "Kyo δὲ παντὶ TH 
περὶ γάμου βουλευομένῳ διαμαρτύρομαι, ὅτι παράγει τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ 
κόσμου τούτου, καὶ ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος ἐστὶν, Ἵνα καὶ οἱ ἔχοντες 
A ε X; + > "Ka δέ / X Av / θ 
γυναῖκας ὡς μὴ ἔχοντες ὦσιν. "Kav δέ μοι παραναγινώσκῃ τὸ, Αὐξάνεσθε 
t πληθύνεσθε: Ὁ τοῦ τῶ θεσιῶ ὶ ὶ ὴ ὃ 
καὶ πληθύνεσθε: καταγελῶ τοῦ τῶν νομοθεσιῶν τοὺς καιροὺς μὴ δια- 
ig 7] fe € , / τς > “ὃ > 
κρίνοντος. [Τ]ορνείας παραμυθία ὃ δεύτερος γάμος, οὐκ ἐφόδιον εἰς 
53.5.2 ft AS es ΄ ,ὕ 7a aD IN ay \ 
ἀσέλγειαν. Hi οὐκ ἐγκαρτερεύονται, γαμησάτωσαν, φησίν' οὐχὶ δὲ καὶ 
γαμοῦντες παρανομείτωσαν. 
Οἱ δὲ οὐδὲ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν ἀποβλέπουσιν, ot τὴν ψυχὴν λημῶντες τῷ 
/ ἴων > ie t / \ ἮΝ τς ͵7 > 
πάθει τῆς ἀτιμίας, πάλαι διακρίνασαν τὰς τοῦ γένους προσηγορίας. ᾿Εκ 
/ Ἂς 4 Ν θέ ᾿ς Γι °>ASd λ ἈΝ 
ποίας γὰρ συγγενείας τοὺς γεννηθέντας προσαγορεύσουσιν ; ελφοὺς 
> Ἂς > 7 a“ 5 Ἂς “A ὰ 3 / Ν Ὁ lal 
αὐτοὺς ἀλλήλων ἢ ἀνεψιοὺς προσεροῦσιν; ἀμφότερα yap αὐτοῖς 
7 \ \ ΄ \ ΄ > \ ΄, 
προσαρμόσει διὰ τὴν σύγχυσιν. Μὴ ποιήσῃς, ὦ ἄνθρωπε, τὴν θείαν 
AN a“ / Ν \ Ψ Ἂν 7 / » Vd 
μητρυιὰν TOV νηπίων: μηδὲ τὴν ἐν μητρὸς τάξει θάλπειν ὀφείλουσαν, 
lal / 
ταύτην ἐφοπλίσῃς ταῖς ἀμειλίκτοις ζηλοτυπίαιςς. Μόνον yap τὸ γένος 
ἴων nw Ν \ 7 DN 4 Ἂν Ε θ Ἂ ἀλλ δὲ «ε \ 
TOV μητρυιῶν καὶ μετὰ θάνατον ἐλαύνει τὴν ἔχθραν μᾶλλον δὲ οἱ μὲν 
” 7 ἊΝ 7 7 ὃ Ἀ « δὲ x an Vf 
ἄλλως πολέμιοι τοῖς τεθνηκόσι σπένδονται" αἱ δὲ μητρυιαὶ τοῦ μίσους 
wn » 
μετὰ τὸν θάνατον ἄρχοντα. Κεφάλαιον δὲ τῶν εἰρημένων, Hi μὲν 
an an ¢€ > 7 9 \ 
νόμῳ τις ὁρμᾶται πρὸς TOV γάμον, ἤνοικται πᾶσα ἡ οἰκουμένη" εἰ δὲ 
5 θὴ “ a“ ε X Ν a x λέ 5 aN θή ek (6 
ἐμπαθὴς αὐτῷ ἡ σπουδὴ, διὰ τοῦτο καὶ πλέον ἀποκλεισθήτω, “Ϊνα μάθῃ 
ἴων ἴων na ἴω “ Ἂς 5 / 9 
τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος κτᾶσθαι ἐν ἁγιασμῷ καὶ τιμῇ, μὴ ἐν πάθει ἐπιθυμίας. 
/ ἴων > las " 
ΠΠλείονά με λέγειν ὡρμημένον τὸ μέτρον ἐπέχει τῆς ἐπιστολῆς. Εὔχομαι 
lat if a“ fe >) ἴω “x \ 
δὲ ἢ THY παραίνεσιν ἡμῶν ἰσχυροτέραν TOV πάθους ἀποδειχθῆναι, ἢ μὴ 


Ὅν 


690 HOLY MATRIMONY 


an A » fal 5) 7 
ἐπιδημῆσαι τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ τὸ ἄγος τοῦτο" ἀλλ’ ἐν οἷς ἂν ἐτολμήθη τόποις 
ἐναπομεῖναι. 

S. ΤΙΜΟΤΗΥ oF ALEXANDRIA.! 
n > / Ν 
Ἐρώτησις. His τὸ ξεῦξαι γάμον ἐὰν καλέσῃ τις κληρικὸν, ἀκούσῃ δὲ 
δ) 7 3 > Ν / 
τὸν γάμον παράνομον, ἢ θειογαμίαν, ἤγουν ἀδελφὴν τελευτησάσης 
lal c 
γυναικὸς τὴν μέλλουσαν ζεύγνυσθαι, εἰ ὀφείλει ἀκολουθῆσαι ὁ κληρικὸς, 
ἢ προσφορὰν ποιῆσαι; Ε 
¢ > 7 ε 
᾿Απόκρισις. “Ama€ εἴπατε" "Hav ἀκούσῃ ὁ κληρικὸς τὸν γάμον 
, » 5. ε ΄ , ,ὕ ᾿ ᾽ > Ἂν ε a Ν 
παράνομον. Hi οὖν ὁ γάμος παράνομός ἐστιν, οὐκ ὀφείλει ὁ κληρικὸς 


a ε ΄ δ 7, 
Κοινώνειν αμαρτιας ἀλλοτρίας. 


S. AMBROSE. 
Letter to Paternus. (Cl. i. 60.)? 


Paterni quidem unanimi mei salutationem legi, sed consultationem 
haudquaquam paternam ; ut velis filio neptem copulare ex filia: sed 
nec avo te, nec patre dignam. .. . 

Quid enim est, quod dubitari queat; cum lex divina etiam 
patrueles fratres prohibeat convenire in conjugalem copulam, qui 
sibi quarto sociantur gradu? Hic autem gradus tertius est, qui 
etiam civili jure a consortio conjugii exceptus videtur. Sed prius 
sacrae legis scita interrogemus; praetendis enim in tuis litteris, 
quod permissum hoc divino jure connubium hujusmodi pignoribus 
existimetur, eo quod non sit prohibitum. Ego autem et prohibitum 
assero; quia cum leviora interdicta sint de patruelibus fratribus, 
multo magis hoc quod arctioris est plenum necessitudinis, inter- 
dictum arbitror. Qui enim leviora astringit, graviora non solvit, 
sed alligat. Quod si ideo permissum putas, quia specialiter non 
est prohibitum sermone Legis reperies, ne pater filiam suam ac- 
cipiat uxorem Numquid ideo licet, quia non est prohibitum ἢ 
Minime; interdictum est enim naturae jure, interdictum est lege, 
quae est in cordibus singulorum; interdictum est inviolabili prae- 
scriptione pietatis, titulo necessitudinis. Quanta hujusmodi invenies 
non esse interdicta lege per Moysen edita, et tamen interdicta sunt 
quadam voce naturae. 

S. AUGUSTINE. 
De Civitate Det xv. c. 16.8 


Experti autem sumus in connubiis consobrinarum etiam nostris 
temporibus propter gradum propinquitatis fraterno gradui proximum, 


1 Migne’s Ed. Pat. Gr. tom. xxxiii. p. 1808. 
2 Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 1183, 3 Ibid. tom. vii. p. 459. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 691 


quam raro per mores fiebat, quod fieri per leges licebat; quia id nec 
divina prohibuit, et nondum prohibuerat lex humana. Verumtamen 
factum etiam licitum propter vicinitatem horrebatur illiciti; et quod 
fiebat cum consobrina, pene cum sorore fierl videbatur: quia et ipsi 
inter se propter tam propinquam consanguinitatem fratres vocantur, 
et pene germani sunt. uit autem antiquis patribus religiosae curae, 
ne ipsa propinquitas se paulatim propaginum ordinibus dirimens 
longius abiret et propinquitas esse desisteret, eam nondum longe 
positam rursus matrimonii vinculo colligare, et quodammodo revocare 
fugientem. Unde jam pleno hominibus orbe terrarum, non quidem 
sorores ex patre vel matre, vel ex ambobus suis parentibus natas, sed 
tamen amabant de suo genere ducere uxores. Verum quis dubitet 
honestius hoc tempore etiam consobrinorum prohibita esse conjugia ? 
non solum secundum ea quae disputavimus, propter multiplicandas 
affinitates, ne habeat duas necessitudines una persona, cum duae 
possint eas habere, et numerus propinquitatis aungeri; sed etiam 
quia nescio quomodo inest humanae verecundiae quiddam naturale 
atque laudabile, ut cui debet causa propinquitatis reverendum 
honorem, ab ea contineat, quamvis generatricem, tamen libidinem, 
de qua erubescere videmus et ipsam pudicitiam conjugalem. 


Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 111. 61.1 


Q@uaeritur utrum hoc vivo fratre, an mortuo sit prohibitum: et 
non parva quaestio est. Si enim dixerimus de vivi fratris uxore 
locutam Scripturam, uno generali praecepto, quo prohibetur homo 
ad uxorem accedere alienam, etiam hoc utique continetur. Quid 
est ergo quod tam diligenter has personas, quas appellat domesticas, 
propris prohibitionibus distinguit a ceteris? Non enim et quod 
prohibet de uxore patris, hoc est, de noverca, vivo patre accipiendum 
est, et non potius mortuo. 

ise oo 

Uxorem super sororem ejus non accipies in zelum. Hic non pro- 
hibuit superducere, quod licebat antiquis propter abundantiam 
propagationis, sed sororem sorori noluit superduci; quod videtur 
fecisse Jacob, sive quia nondum fuerat lege prohibitum, sive quia 
suppositae alterius fraude deceptus est, et illa magis de placito 
veniebat, quam posterius accepit ; sed injustum erat priorem dimitti, 
ne faceret eam moechari. Hoc autem quod ait zm zelum, utrum ideo 
positum est, ne sit zelus inter sorores, qui inter illas quae sorores 


1 Migne’s Ed, tom. iii. p. 705. 2 Lbid. 
ΕΖ 


S. Basil. 


692 HOLY MATRIMONY 


non essent contemnendus fuit? an ideo potius, ne propter hoc fiat, 
id est ne hoc animo fiat, ut in zelum sororis soror superducatur, 


THEODORET. 
Quaestiones in Glenesin,+ 
Qu. 86. Tivos χάριν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐξζηλοτύπουν ἀλλήλας. 
᾿Ατελεῖς ἦσαν, καὶ δυσσεβοῦς ἀνδρὸς θυγατέρες, τὰ ξόανα θεοὺς 
ὀνομάζοντος. Τούτου ἕνεκεν νομοθετῶν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν τοιοῦτον ἀπαγορεύει 
γάμον: Ov λήψῃ γὰρ, φησὶ, γυναῖκα ex’ ἀδελῴῃ αὐτῆς ἀντίζηλον 
αὐτῆς. 
Roman Synop, A.D. 402.3 
Canones Synodi Romanorum ad Gallos Episcopos, juxta quaestiones 
ab illis propositas. 


c. 9. De eo qui sororem uxoris suae duxerit uxorem in lege veteris 
testamenti scriptum est, ad suscitandum semen defuncti fratris 
oportere ducere uxorem, ita tamen si lberos ex eodem minime 
reliquisset. Inde est enim quod Joannes Baptista contradixit 
Herodi, quoniam non licebat ei accipere uxorem, quia de fratre 
reliquerat filios. Tamen propter virilem generationem legis con- 
stitutio imperabat hoc fieri a viro: de foeminis nusquam est lectum, 
sed forte praesumptum. Nam lex dicit: Maledictus qui cum uxoris 
suae sorore dormiertt. Numquid duas habuit uxores Jacob uno 
in tempore sorores causa mysterii, et concubinas, et omnes qui nati 
sunt patriarchae sunt appellati? Nunc jam Christianis habere non 
permittitur. Numquid uxores et concubinas habuerunt? Sed nunc 
hoe non patitur fieri testamentum, ubi amplius de integritate trac- 
tatur, et castitas Christo docente laudatur, cum dicit: Mon omnes 
capiunt verbum Det, sed quibus datur. 

ce. 11. De eo qui avunculi sui uxorem duxerit. Avunculi filium 
ducere non licet, quoniam similis causa generando per gradus patris 
extranel separatur atque purgatur: retro autem redire fas non est. . . . 


In the period from Constantine to Justinian reference may 
be made to 8. Basil, 8S. Timothy of Alexandria, 8. Ambrose, 
S. Augustine, Theodoret, and the Roman Synod of 402 ap. 

S. Basil in his Canonical Epistles has several decisions with 
regard to unions of near kin. In his Canon 23 (Ep. 199) he 


-rules that a man who has married his brother’s wife is not to be 


1 Migne’s Ed. tom. i. p. 196. 2 Mansi, tom. iii. p. 1137. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 693 


received until he has left her. He thus, notwithstanding the 
permission of the secular law, re-affirms the sentence of the 
council of Neo-Caesarea, that in the case of a man who has 
married his brother’s wife no performance of penance can 
render the union admissible. In the same canon he refers to a 
letter (the letter to Diodorus?) in which he has treated the 
subject of marriages with two sisters and with two brothers.1 

By Canon 67 (Ep. 217) the incest of a brother and a sister is 
to be visited with the same duration of penance as would be 
assigned to murder. Canon 68 visits unions within prohibited 
relationships with the penalties of adultery. Canon 75 deals 
with the case of a man who has sinned with his half-sister. 
His penance in the various degrees is to last eleven years. 
Canon 76 visits a union with a daughter-in-law with a similar 
penalty. Canon 78 assigns a seven years’ penance in the case 
of a man who has married two sisters, although at different 
times. Canon 79 visits sin with a step-mother with the same 
penalty as sin with a sister. 

The epistle to Diodorus of Tarsus (Canon 87) is a well- 
known expression of the mind of 8. Basil on the subject of 
marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. It has been already 
noticed that in Canon 78 S. Basil assigned a seven years’ 
penance to a man who had married two sisters. In the letter 
to Diodorus he is not less pronounced. He begins by reciting 
that he has seen a letter bearing the signature of Diodorus, 
which he considers could not have been written by Diodorus, 
inasmuch as it countenances the union of a man with his 
deceased wife’s sister. He accordingly asks Diodorus to join 
him in combating this perversion. First there 15 the argument 
of custom. “ And our custom is that if any man, being over- 
come by filthy passion, fall into an unlawful union with two 
sisters, neither is such union to be accounted marriage, nor is 
either of the parties ever to be reconciled to the unity of 
the Church, unless they have first parted the one from the 
other.” This statement is interesting as shewing that the mind 
of the Church on this matter had matured. The Councils of 


1 §. Basil, Epist. 199, Canon 23. (Migne’s Ed. tom. iv. p. 724.) 
2 Ibid. Epist. 217, Canon 67. (Migne’s Ed. tom, iv. p. 805.) 


Various 
penalties. 


Epistle to 
Diodorus 
of Tarsus. 


Argument 
against 
marriage 
with a 
eceased 
wife’s 
sister. 


694 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Eliberis and Ancyra may not have required the offending 
parties to separate: the custom of 8. Basil’s day accounts 
the union to be simply no marriage and essentially inad- 
missible. 

Replying to the argument that Lev. xviii. 18 permits union 
with the wife’s sister when the wife is dead, 8. Basil contends: 


1. That the law is addressed to those under the law. 


2. That on being asked the question whether it was not 
written that a man might take a woman to her sister, he had 
replied that it was not written. 


3. That the same sophism would allow a man to take his 
wife’s sister during his wife’s life-time if only he did not take 
her so as to “vex” her. 


4. That the prohibitions of Lev. xviii. only deal expressly 
with the sins ef the Egyptians and Canaanites. That the case 


of two sisters at once was mentioned because it was the ease of 
Jacob. 


5. That, as an example, the sin mentioned by Amos—“a son 
and his father will go in unto the same maid”—was not 
mentioned in Leviticus. That the offences of uncleanness were 
not specified in full detail. 


6. That, notwithstanding, the prohibition “none of you shall 
approach to any that is near of kin to him to uncover their 
nakedness” includes the case of the wife’s sister. “For what 
can there be nearer to a man than his own wife; or rather 
than his own flesh? For ‘they are no longer two, but 
one flesh.’ So then, through the wife, her sister necessarily 
comes to be near to the husband. For as he is not to take the 
mother of his wife, nor his wife’s daughter, because neither can 
he take his own mother nor his own daughter, so neither is 
he to take the sister of his wife any more than his own 
sister. And vice versa neither will it be lawful to the woman 
to be married to any who are near of kin to her husband. For 
the rights of kindred are common on both sides.” _ 


7. That the injunction to “increase and multiply” does not 
cover transgressions. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 695 


8. That marriages of kindred cause confusion. “ Make not, 
O man, the young children’s aunt into their step-mother, nor 
arm against them with her implacable jealousies her who ought 
to foster them in her mother’s place.”! 


S. Timothy of Alexandria was elected patriarch of that S. Timothy 
throne in 381 A.D. His ‘canonical answers” are authoritative one 
decisions in reply to questions put to him by his clergy for 
their direction. They subsequently became part of the canon 
law of the Eastern Church. In one of these “questions” S. 
Timothy is asked if a clericus should take part in a marriage 
which he knows to be unlawful, as, for instance the marriage y,,siage 
of aman with his aunt, or with his deceased wife's sister. He withan 
replies that if a marriage is unlawful the clericus must have erred 
nothing to do with it. He ought not to take part in others’ peat 
sins. There is no question raised as to the fact of the unlaw- unlawful. 
fulness of such unions to Christians, which appears to be 
entirely recognised. The date of these answers will le between 
981 and 385 A.D., the years which bound 8. Timothy’s occupancy 
of the patriarchate.” 

The case of marriage with a niece was a case where it was S. 
likely that difficulties would arise. It had not been expressly Snes 
forbidden in the Mosaic Code, nor had it been avoided in Paternus. 
Jewish practice; and the ancient prohibition of the Roman paren 
law had been removed by the enactment of the Senate in the aces Ps 
time of Claudius. In the time of 8. Ambrose we find a certain 
Paternus, a Christian gentleman of honourable rank, wishing 
to marry his son to that son’s niece. It appears that Paternus 
was father of the son by one marriage, while by another 
marriage he was father of a daughter, whose daughter again 
was the contemplated bride. The girl’s mother was thus the 
half-sister of the young man. Paternus referred to 8. Ambrose 
with regard to the proposed marriage, a reference which S. 
Ambrose characterises as “worthy of thee neither as a father, 
nor as a grandfather. ... For what is there which can be 
subject of doubt?” The fact that the union was not expressly 

1S. Basil, Hpist. 160. (Migne’s Edition, tom. iv. pp. 621 sqq.) 


2.5, Timothy of Alexandria in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, tom. xxxiil. 
p. 1303. 


9, 
Augustine. 


On the 
marriage 
of first 
cousins. 


The case 
of the 
brother’s 
wife. 


The case 
of the 
wife’s 
sister. 


696 HOLY MATRIMONY 


mentioned in the Mosaic Code was of no significance, Inasmuch 
as more distant relationships were distinctly prohibited. Qu 
enim leviora adstringit, graviora non solvit sed adligat. “Is it 
therefore permitted, because it is not expressly prohibited? In 
no wise, for it is interdicted by the law of nature; it is inter- 
dicted by the law which is found in every man’s heart; it is 
interdicted by the inviolable prescription of piety, by the 
ground of necessity.”? 

The marriage of first cousins was not forbidden by the 
Mosaic code. By the ancient law of Rome such marriages were 
unknown, but in the first three centuries of Christianity the 
Roman law and custom permitted them. At the end of the 
fourth century (Arecadius and Honorius, A.D. 396) they were 
prohibited as incestuous, but they were again legalised in 
A.D. 405. 

S. Augustine’s remarks on the marriage of first cousins in 
the De Civitate Dev are of interest. He says that in his day 
such marriages had been by the custom of the day very rarely 
contracted, although they were permitted by the laws, since 
neither did the divine law prohibit them, nor had they as yet 
been prohibited by human law. Notwithstanding, men shrank 
from a lawful course on account of its nearness to the unlawful, 


and because what had place with a cousin seemed almost as 


though it was with a sister.” 

In the Questions upon the Heptateuch there are at least two 
passages of some interest in the present connexion. Com- 
menting on the prohibition to take a brother’s wife, he remarks 
that it refers of course to the wife of a brother deceased, since 
the wife of a living brother would have anyhow come under 
the condemnation of adultery.2 With regard to the vexed 
question as to the meaning of the phrase, “a wife to her sister,” 
he is of opinion that it is not the polygamous character of the 
marriage which is condemned, inasmuch as polygamy was 
conceded to the ancients for the greater abundance of offspring; 
but the marrying, in addition to an existing wife, of that wife’s 





1S. Ambrose, Letter to Paternus (Cl. i. 60). [Migne’s Ed. tom. ii. p. 1183.] 
2 §. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xv. c. 16. (Migne’s Ed. tom. vii. p. 459.) 
> Ibid. Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, iii. 61. (Migne’s Ed. tom, iii. p. 705.) 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 697 


sister (sororem sorort superduct); and that this had been the 
case of Jacob, whether because it had not yet been prohibited 
by law, or because of the special circumstances resulting from 
the fraud which was practised upon him.? 

Theodoret in his Questions upon Genesis remarks of the same Theodoret. 
prohibition that it was pronounced by Gop because of the case 
of Jacob’s wives, whose vexing of one another he attributes to 
the fact that they were the daughters of an impious man who 
worshipped images.” 

The Roman Synod of 402 A.D., in canons addressed to the The 
Bishops of Gaul in reply to questions submitted by them, pare 
decides that marriage with a wife’s sister, and that marriage 4°“ 
with an uncle’s wife, are unlawful.? 


Git.) From Justinian. 

In an enquiry which confines itself to the Divine laws of Bor oa 
marriage, the period of Christian history which intervenes o¢ 
between Justinian and the development of the system of eee ᾿ 
Papal dispensations is of comparatively little significance as of little 
to the question before us. Alike in the East and in the West pies 
the tendency was in the direction of an enormous increase of Enormous 
prohibitions, an increase at once foreign to the natural con- pronibi, ¢ 
science of mankind, to the Mosaic Code, and to the traditions tions. 
of Christian antiquity. In three directions, viz., (1) consan- 
euinity, (2) affinity, and (5) the newly-found doctrine of 
spiritual relationship, the development went on till the original 
prohibitions were hardly recognisable in the mathematically- 
worked-out plans of the medieval churches. As, however, 
there is on the one hand no contention that these late accre- 
tions form part of the Divine law, while on the other it is not 
disputed that from the time of Justinian to the period of 
Papal dispensations the prohibitions retained in the Anglican 
table were universally enforced, a very brief survey of the 


period will be sufficient for our present purpose. 





1S. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, iii. 63. (Migne’s Ed. tom, iii. 
p. 705.) 

2 Theodoret, Quaestiones in Genesin. (Migne’s Ed. tom, i. p. 196.) 

3 Mansi, tom. iii. Ὁ. 11387. 


698 HOLY MATRIMONY 


The Roman method of computing degrees of relationship was 
to count from one of the parties up to a common ancestor, and 
then down to the other party. Thus first cousins were held to 
be related in the fourth degree 


2. Grandfather of A and B, 
| 


1. A’s Father, 3. B’s Moses 
0. A. 4. ἢ, 
uncle and nephew in the third degree. 
1. Father of A, a Grandfather of B. 


| | 
0. A. 2. Father of B. 


3. B. 


The old Romans, as has been seen, forbade the marriage of 
persons related in the fourth degree, as first cousins, but the 
prohibition fell early into desuetude, and an attempt to revive 
it under the Emperors was not successful. The system of 
Justinian permitted marriage in the fourth degree. 

The The Eastern Church adopted all the prohibitions of the 
rly Roman law which were in force in Christian times, and by 
pers degrees extended them. The Council in Trullo (A.D. 680) 
prohibition again forbade marriages within the fourth degree Not long 
cre after, the Emperors Leo the Isaurian and Constantine (A.D. 740) 
degree. extended the prohibition to second cousins, and to all other 
persons related to each other within the sixth degree, even 
though not equidistant from a common ancestor.2. Thus the 
marriage of a first cousin with a first cousin twice removed 


came under the bar. 
2. Grandfather of A, and Great-great-grandfather of B. 
| 


| | 
1. Father of A. 3. Great-grandfather of B. 


0. ne 4, Grandtather of B. 
5. Mother of B. 
6. B, 
1 Canon 54, 


2 Zhishman, Lherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 288, quoting ΕΠ]. ii. 2, and 
Prochiron vii, 4. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 699 


The patriarchs of Constantinople, Sisinnius (in his Tome of 
A.D. 997)! and Michael Cerularius (A.D. 1043-1059) went still 
farther, and forbade marriage within the seventh degree of 
relationship. The Eastern canonists, while accordingly ex- 
tending the system of prohibition to a length previously 
unknown in the Christian Church, have left us an illustration, 
employed already in this volume, which is a very apt and 
useful one for the understanding of the principle of these 
prohibitions of marriage. Descent from a common ancestor, 
say they, is like the attraction from a magnet, the force of 


which becomes constantly less with distance till at last it is The 
principle 
of the 


practically inoperative* They rule that the magnet should 


exercise prohibitive force at the seventh degree, but cease to do masnet. 


so at the eighth, as at third cousins. The illustration may be 
accepted with thankfulness, and has already been employed in 
these pages; but members of the Anglican Church at least 
would apply the closure at a nearer point. The stand taken 
by the Eastern Church at the seventh degree has held its 
ground, and is still the rule of the East. 

In relationships of affinity or ἀγκιστεία a parallel develop- 
ment went on. The Eastern Church was not content with the 


Mosaic limitation of the prohibition by reason of affinity, to Affinity 


afinitas promi generis. The Roman law recognised a second 
affinity which was in principle, as has been seen, rather the 
extension of the principle of the respectus parentelae, than any 
intensified sense of the binding character of the Mosaic oneness 
of kin. Thus a man might not marry his step-son’s widow, nor 
a woman her step-daughter’s husband. The same degree of 
affinity in the case of collaterals was no bar, presumably 
because the respectus parentelae did not come in. However, be 
the principle of the Roman prohibition what it might, the 
Eastern Church adopted the prohibition, and in adopting it 
assigned to it as its principle, not the respectas parentelae, but 
the oneness of kin arising from the affinity. This principle 
accepted involved at once a fresh batch of prohibitions. For 


1 Zhishman, Kherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p, 242, 
2 Ibid. p. 244, 3 Ibid. p. 252. 


: : of two 
the “affinity of one marriage,” known to the Roman lawyers as marri 


ages. 


Spiritual 
relation- 
ship. 


700 HOLY MATRIMONY 


instance, not only was a man debarred from marriage with his 
wife’s sister, but his brother was debarred from marriage with 
her. In other words, two brothers might not marry two sisters. 
To sum up this burden of the affinitas secundi generis, as 
maintained by the Eastern Church, it may be said to amount 
to this; If two families, previously unconnected, become united 
through the marriage of a member of one family with a member 
of the other, all further marriages between these two families 
become estopped. Thus the Council in Trullo forbade the 
marriage of a father and son with a mother and daughter, of a 
father and son with two sisters, and of two brothers with two 
sisters! The patriarch Sisinnius extended prohibitions of 
this character to the sixth degree. He forbade the following 
unions : 


1. The marriage of two brothers with two women who were 
first cousins to each other. 


2. The marriage of two sisters with two men who were first 
cousins to each other. 


3. The marriage of an uncle and a nephew with two sisters. 


4. The marriage of two brothers with two women who were 
aunt and niece to each other.” 


A remarkable development in the East and West alike was 
the development of the doctrine of spiritual relationship. 
There can be little doubt that it arose directly from the 
prohibitions of the Roman law on the ground of relationship by 
adoption. Unknown to Christian antiquity, it is yet found in 
the Code of Justinian, where, in an enactment mainly regarding 
prohibitions on the ground of relationship by adoption, the 
further provision is made; “That person is on all wise to be 
prohibited from marriage, whom anyone, whether she be his 


1 Council in Trullo, c. 54: συνείδομεν γυμνότερον τὰ περὶ τούτου ἐκθέσθαι, 
ὁρίζοντες ἀπὸ τοῦ viv τὸν TH οἰκείᾳ ἐξαδέλφῃ πρὸς γάμου κοινωνίαν συναπτόμενον * 
ἤ πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν μητρὶ καὶ θυγατρί" ἢ δύο κόραις ἀδελφαῖς πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν, ἢ 
ἀδελφοῖς δυσὶ μητέρα καὶ θυγατέρα, ἢ ἀδελφοὺς δὺο δυσὶν ἀδελφαῖς, ὑπὸ τὸν τῆς 
ἑπταετίας πίπτειν κανόνα, ἀφισταμένων αὐτων προδήλως τοῦ παρανόμου συνοικεσίου. 
(Mansi, tom. xi. p. 968.) 

2 Zhishman, Hherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 321, quoting the Tome of 
Sisinnius, v. 14. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 701 


ward or not, has undertaken (as god-parent) from holy baptism, 
since no other circumstance can so induce paternal affection, 
and the just prohibition of nuptials, as a bond of. this kind, 
whereby their souls are united, with Gop as Mediator (Deo 
mediante).”' The passage is worthy of consideration. It is 
not only apparently the first formal prohibition of the kind, 
but it assigns the ground of the prohibition as induced paternal 
affection, and that in an enactment mainly concerned with 
prohibitions on the ground of adoption. To this is added the 
statement that the souls of the two persons are united, Deo 
mediante. The induced paternal affection appears to be brought 
in as a result parallel to the result of adoption, and rightly 
bringing with it the prohibitions involved in adoption. The 
union of the souls of the two persons, Deo mediante, is in fact 
the new doctrine of spiritual affinity, which was not long in 
forgetting that it had taken its beginnings from the law of 
adoption. 

There is here only mention of the relationship of god-parent 
to god-child, a relationship of ascendant and descendant, Extensiou 
involving the respectus parentelae. Once admitted, this new cine 
ground of relationship would find no difficulty in extending 
itself to collaterals. Sponsors were in spiritual relationship to 
one another, to one another’s natural relations, and to the 
natural relations of the god-child. The numerical computation 
set inagain. Spiritual relationship must involve the prohibition and to the 
of marriage to so many degrees. A synod under the patriarch mabe: 
Nicholas III. (a.p. 1084-1111) laid down that the prohibition 
extended to the seventh degree, as in blood-relationship.2 In 
counting degrees both kinds of relationship were taken. The son 
(in blood) of the god-parent was held to be the brother of the god- 
child; the children of these two were held to be first cousins, 
or related in the fourth degree; the children of these again were 


1 Code of Justinian, v. 4 ὁ. 26. (A.D. 530, Oct. 1.) “Ea videlicet persona 
omnimodo ad nuptias venire prohibenda, quam aliquis, sive alumna sit, sive non, 
a sacrosancto suscepit baptismate, quum nihil aliud sic inducere potest paternam 
affectionem et justam nuptiarum prohibitionem, quam hujusmodi nexus per 
quem Deo mediante animae eorum copulatae sunt.” 

* Zhishman, Eherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, pp. 273, 274. 


It is not 
contended 
that these 
prohibi- 


tions are of 


the law 
Divine. 


In the 
West 
prohibition 
extended 
to the 
seventh 
generation. 


702 HOLY MATRIMONY 


taken as second cousins, or related in the sixth degree. Even 
the seventh degree of such relationship was a bar to marriage. 

In face of such a development of human prohibitions the 
English churchman will probably feel that he does well to be 
anery. At least he will find no one to contradict him when he 
affirms that these prohibitions form no part of the Divine law 
of marriage, and that, in fact, they found no place in the 
primitive Church. 

It is not a little remarkable that the Eastern churches, 
which of all the churches of Christendom have been most 
regardless of the primitive traditions of the indissolubility of 
marriage, have, in this matter of the multiplication of 
prohibited degrees, stood inflexibly firm on the standpoint of 
the medizval Church; and that even at the present day it is 
not admitted that any dispensation is possible from any one of 
these prohibited degrees.!. In the light of the ruin wrought by 
dispensation in the West, 1t may be felt that honour is due to 
any stand made against the dispensing system. Yet is there 
here no making “the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have 
not made sad” ;? is there here no making “the commandment 
of Gop of none effect by your tradition” ?3 

It is, however, no part of the present writer’s office to sit in 
judgment on a great historic Church, which has in so much 
been faithful and true. The present enquiry is concerned only 
with the Divine laws of marriage, and it is here sufficient to 
affirm with all clearness that in those Divine laws the accretions 
of the period following Justinian have neither part nor lot. 

As in the East, so in the West, the tendency was in the 
direction of multiplying prohibitions, and in some particulars 
the tendency was carried farther than in the East. Thus, 
while the Eastern Church was content with prohibiting 
marriage within seven degrees according to the Eastern or old 
Roman reckoning, the Western Church went so far as to 
prohibit marriages within seven degrees according to the new 
Western reckoning, which was probably derived from a German 


1 Zhishman, Hherecht der Orientalischen Kirche, p. 718, 
2 Ezekiel xiii. 22, 2-8. Matti av 6. 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 703 


source.! By this Western reckoning seven degrees were 
practically equivalent to seven generations. So the Synod of 
London, in A.D. 1102, prohibits intermarriage wsque ad septimam 
generationem.? Brother and sister were related in the first 
degree, first cousins in the second degree, second cousins in 
the third degree, and similarly beyond. Consequently the 
prohibition of marriage within seven degrees in the West was 
indefinitely more burdensome than even the prohibition of the 
East; in practice it covered all remembered relationship. 
Accordingly the Roman Synod of 721 prohibits marriage with 
any blood relation or wife of a blood relation ;? and the Council 
of Worms in 868 similarly prohibits intermarriage so long as Spiritual 
relationship is known or remembered.* Again, while spiritual ae 
relationship in the East meant spiritual relationship through ***"*** 
baptism, in the West it was extended to the sponsors of 
confirmation, and to the relationship of priest and penitent in 
the sacrament of Penance.® On the other hand, all prohibitions 
on the ground of affinity other than affinity promi generis were Affinity is 
definitely abandoned by the fourth Lateran Council, held in ΠΣ ἃ ΒαΣ 
A.D. 1215 under Innocent III, which also reduced the prohibited Prim 
degrees from seven to four, thereby making them almost coin- ee 
cident with the degrees prohibited in the East.°® 

The extension of prohibition to distant degrees of relation- 
ship, and to spiritual ties, does not come within the scope of 
this volume. The last contention which the Latin Church 
would make with respect to such prohibitions is that they The system 
have any claim to be regarded as of right Divine. On the gjpeees. 
other hand, there is no question but that the Levitical pro- tio. 
hibitions were uniformly imposed, and submitted to without 


1 Freisen, Geschichte des Canonischen Eherechts, who enumerates the various 
pronouncements on the subject, pp. 374-401. 

2 Mansi, tom. xx. p. 1152. 3 Ibid. xii. p. 263. 

4 Hartzheim, Conc. Germaniae, ii. p. 815: ‘ Nulli Christiano liceat de propria 
consanguinitate seu cognatione uxorem accipere usque dum generatio recordatur, 
cognoscitur, aut in memoria tenetur.”’ 

5 Freisen, Geschichte des Canonischen Eherechts, pp. 507-539. 

8 Concilium Lateranense IV, c. 50: ‘* Prohibitio quoque copulae conjugalis 
quartum consanguinitatis et affinitatis gradum de cetero non excedat: quoniam 
in ulterioribus gradibus jam non potest absque gravi dispendio hujusmodi 
prohibitio generaliter observari.” (Mansi, xxii. 1038.) 


Pope 
Martin V. 
(1427 A.D.) 
first 
dispenses 
in the case 
of the 
wife’s 
sister, 


704 HOLY MATRIMONY 


dispute, till the introduction of the fatal system of Papal 
dispensations. The reason of that system is not far to seek. 
Indeed, some system of dispensation in matters purely eccle- 
siastical must be acknowledged to be only reasonable. It is 
a maxim of jurisprudence that the power which makes a law 
can dispense from it, but that the persons subjected to the 
law can have no power to dispense themselves. By a reason- 
able system of dispensation the Anglican Churches, in common 
with other Churches of Christendom, thus exercise, through 
the bishops, the right of dispensing with the merely ecclesias- 
tical requirement of the publication of banns. Similarly it 
can hardly be said to be ground of complaint that Gregory IL, 
only five years after the passing of the burdensome prohibition 
of the Roman Synod in Α.Ὁ. 721, assigned to the converts of 
S. Boniface the fourth degree as the limit of prohibition. 
The long and monotonous history of dispensations from eccle- 
siastical prohibitions need not detain us. It unfortunately 
familiarised the mind with the idea of Papal dispensations in 
marriage cases, and the Church at large had hardly learnt to 
make any sufficient distinction between prohibitions Divine 
and human. The greater theologians indeed are clear enough. 
S. Thomas Aquinas affirms that it is the business of the 
Church to separate those between whom, by reason of con- 
sanguinity or affinity, there can be no true marriage, and he 
knows nothing of dispensations with regard to such persons.? 
Nor does it appear that the field of the Levitical prohibitions 
was entered upon by the Papal dispensing claims till the 15th 
century. 

In A.D. 1427 Pope Martin V. granted a dispensation to the 
Count of Foix either to marry his wife’s sister, or to continue 
a union with a woman whose sister he had formerly seduced. 
The affinity of course would be the same in either case. This, 
so far as appears, is the first instance of Papal dispensation 


1 Mansi, xii. 245. ‘‘ Dicimus, quod oportuerat quidem, quam diu se agnoscunt 
affinitate propinquos, ad hujus copulae non accedere societatem. Sed quia 
temperantia magis, et praesertim in tam barbara gente, plus placet quam 
districtio censurae, concedendum est ut post quartam generationem jungantur,” 

2S. Thomas Aquinas, Suppl. tertiae partis summae, qu. 55, art. 9, 


ae 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 705 


with regard to such affinity. When an application was made 

to Martin’s immediate successor, Eugenius [V., to sanction the 
marriage of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, with his wife’s Eugenius 
sister, it was refused as being wltra vires, The canonist Turre- metic 
cremata, who adjudged the case, records that “that affair was vires. 
considered by the command of the lord Eugenius in the 
presence of us, to whom the cause was committed, and it was 
adjudged that the Pope could not dispense.”! This excellent 
precedent was, however, soon abandoned. Alexander VI. 
(Borgia) granted a dispensation to Emmanuel, king of Portugal, yp eels 
to marry his wife’s sister; and another to Ferdinand, king Sie ΑΛ ΣΌΝ 
Sicily, to marry his aunt he blood. The familiar instance of Henry 
Henry VIII. and Katharine of Aragon,? for which a dis- Md rir 
pensation was granted by Julius 11. in 1503, is the first known et 
case of dispensation to marry a brother’s wife, and only the 
third of dispensation in the same degree of affinity, counting as 

the two first the dispensations of marriage with a wife’s sister 
already noticed. The Council of Trent, while naturally siding 

with Rome in the dispute which arose upon the subject, is very 
guarded in its utterances: “If any say that only those degrees 

of consanguinity and affinity which are mentioned in Leviticus 

can hinder a contract of marriage, or dissolve (a union) already 
contracted, and that the Church cannot dispense in some of 
these, or lay down that a greater number shall hinder or 
nullify, let him be anathema”? The council thus carefully 
avoids specifying the dispensable degrees. Estius, who died in 
1613, says that he has only heard of one example of a 
dispensation to marry a wife’s sister since the Council of Trent, 

and anything like readiness to grant such dispensations is only 

to be found in the last two centuries. The marriage of uncle 





1 Turrecremata, Commentaria super Decreto Gratiani, pars 11. c. 35, qu. 2. 
(Tom. iii. p. 465 b. Venice, 1578.) 

“ς Judicatum est quod non poterat Papa dispensare.” 

5 For various documents see Pocock’s Records of The Reformation, Oxford, 
1870, vol. i. See too Fleury’s Continuator, bk. 120, ο. 42. 

3 Canones et Decreta Conc. Trid. Sess. 24, can. 3. ‘Si quis dixerit, eos 
tantum consanguinitatis et affinitatis gradus qui Levitico exprimuntur posse 
impedire matrimonium contrahendum et dirimere contractum, nec posse 
Ecclesiam in nonnullis illorum dispensare, aut constituere ut plures impediant 
aut dirimant, anathema sit.” 

22 


Cardinal 
Cajetan’s 
expression 
of dilemma. 


His 
conclusion. 


706 HOLY MATRIMONY 


and niece, or of aunt and nephew by blood is in some respects 
more shocking than the closest marriage of affinity. Yet in 
these cases too, following the deplorable precedent of Alexander 
VI. in the ease of Ferdinand of Sicily, dispensations have been 
frequently granted. 

Theologians of the Latin obedience accordingly find them- 
selves in a grave dilemma, which is aptly expressed by Cardinal 
Cajetan: “The Pope is subjected to the natural law, and does 
not stand above it, so that he can remove or alter it; and yet 
King Emmanuel of Portugal has taken two sisters as his wives, 
one after another, of whom the second is still living. The 
Queen of England had contracted marriage with the brother of 
her present consort; Ferdinand the younger, King of Naples, 
married, with a dispensation from Pope Alexander VI., Joanna 
his father’s sister, who still lives; and yet it is evident that 
this is prohibited m the law Divine (hace autem constat esse vn 
divina lege prohibita). Thus are opposed on the one hand the 
Divine law in precepts of this kind, on the other the authority 
of the Roman pontiff”! Cardinal Cajetan, holding that the 
Pope cannot well be wrong, concludes that the only marriages 
which are ultimately excluded by the law of nature are 
marriage with a father and with a mother. On the whole 
this appears to be the usual doctrine of the Latin Church at 
the present day. Many theologians of repute are not, however, 
prepared to go so far. Even Sanchez declares that the marriage 
of brother and sister cannot be sanctioned by Papal dis- 
pensation.” 

There can hardly be need to use strong terms of the fatal 
system of dispensations. Its fruits are unholy, and by them 


we judge the tree. No Christians except those of the Roman- 


Catholic Church are prepared to admit the premise that Papal 
dispensations must needs be justifiable. Consequently con- 
clusions based upon that premise have no force except for 
Roman Catholics. We do not arrive at a knowledge of the 


1 Thomue Aguinatis secunda secundae cum comment. Cajetant, Lugd. 1558, 
p. 536a. 

2 Sanchez, De Sancto Matrimonii Sacramento, Lib, viii. Disp. 6, ὁ 10. (Ed. 
Antwerp, 1607, tom. 11. p 473.) 


OF MARRIAGES OF NEAR KIN 707 


extent of the law Divine by the process of first subtracting all 
which has been invaded by human temerity. 

The English Church of the post-Reformation period, amidst The 
her many faults, may fairly claim that she has been true to nna 
the primitive traditions of Christian marriage. Unlike the 
churches of the East, she has never admitted by one sufficient 
act the rightfulness of remarriage after divorce. Unlike her 
sisters of the West, she has been careful to maintain the Divine 
prohibition of marriage with too near kin. 

The most noteworthy instance of the position which the 

Church of England has taken up in this matter is of course The case 
the case of Henry VIII. and Katharine of Aragon. From the Sey 
theological standpoint the life and motives of Henry VIII. do Katharine 
not call for consideration. The possible mixture of motives in Aragon. 
members of the convocations may be similarly disregarded. 
The question which came before the convocations was the 
purely theological one, and was treated as such. The 
Canterbury convocation by 263 votes to 19 decreed that “it 
was unlawful to marry a deceased brother’s wife,” and “ that 
such a prohibition of the Divine law could not be dispensed 
with by the Pope.” The same conclusion was arrived at in the 
York convocation by 51 votes to 2.1 The only difficulty in the 
particular case of Henry and Katharine was as to the question 
of fact. It was denied by Katharine that consummation of the 
prior marriage had been effected. If this contention had been 
true, there would have been no affinity, and therefore no 
hindrance to the marriage with Henry. But after due enquiry 
and consideration it was formally found that the prior marriage 
had been consummated,? and accordingly Archbishop Cranmer 
in his court at Dunstable pronounced the marriage of Henry 
and Katharine null and void. 





1 Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (Wilkins), 111, 756-8, 767. 

2 See Froude, History of England, vol. i. p. 420: “It is enough that Ferdinand, 
at the time of her first marriage, satisfied himself, after curious enquiry, that he 
might hope for a grandchild; and that the fact of the consummation was 
asserted in the treaty between England and Spain, which preceded the marriage 
with Henry, and in the supposed brief of Pope Julius which permitted it. We 
cannot in consequence be surprised that the convocation accepted the conclusion 
which was sanctioned by so high authority, and we rather wonder at the 
persistency of Catherine’s denials.” 

ἢ 


-The 
Anglican 
Table. 


708 HOLY MATRIMONY 


There appears to be no instance before or since the Refor- 
mation in which the Church of England has finally sanctioned 
any breach of the Levitical prohibitions as regards the marriage 
of near kin. The various Acts of Parliament which have dealt 
with the question as a subject for secular legislation need 
not be here considered. The Anglican table represents the 
authoritative mind of the English Church. First put forth by 
Archbishop Parker in 1563, soon after Elizabeth’s accession, it 
was adopted by the 99th canon of 1605 in the following terms: 
‘No person shall marry within the degrees prohibited by the 
Laws of Gop and expressed in a table set forth by authority in 
the year of Our Lord 1563. And all marriages so made shall 
be adjudged incestuous and unlawful, and consequently shall 
be dissolved as void from the beginning; and the parties so 
married shall by course of law be separated, and the aforesaid 
Table shall be in every Church publicly set up and fixed at the 
charge of the Parish.” The Table, as has been seen, is simply 
the Levitical system exhaustively stated. The 99th canon 
declares that all the marriages specified in it are “ incestuous 
and unlawful,” and treats them as “void from the beginning.” 
This continues to be the voice of the Church of England. On 
the other hand, outside the limits of the table there are no 
prohibitions, and there is accordingly no need of dispensation. 
With us, happily, a marriage union is either entirely legitimate 
or entirely disallowed. 


INDEX 


Aachen, Synods of, on divorce, 370, 
371, 389. 


Abduction, impediment of, 107. 
Abortion, the procuring of, a ground 
of divorce in the East, 357. 


Abraham, his marriage with Sarai, 30, 
44, 641; his divorce of Hagar, 44. 


Abraham and Ricca Esther, case of 668. 


Absence without tidings a ground of 
divorce in the East, 360. 


Adamnan, Canons of 8., 398, 421. 


Adoption, relationship by, how far a 
bar to marriage in Roman law, 671. 


Adultery a ground of separation ; testi- 
mony of Holy Scripture, 152-178 ; 
of the first three centuries, 178-226 ; 
of the period from Constantine to 
Justinian, 227-346; of the East 
after Justinian, 346-362; of the 
West after Justinian, 362-394 ; of 
the Churches of the British Isles, 
394-432 ; of Reason, 4382-435. 


Adultery of the man with a woman 
not a wife, before the Roman law 
stuprum, with the Christian adul- 
tery, 196. — 


Affinity, a ground for prohibition of 
marriage no less than consanguinity, 
642 ; on what principle, 644 ; sub- 
ject to what limitation, 648 ; this 
limitation subsequently abolished in 
the Eastern Church, 699 ; affinity 
produced equally by marriage or by 
illicit intercourse, 704. 

“* Affinity of two marriages” in Roman 
law, 670; in the Eastern Church, 

699; prohibition of marriage for, 
abandoned in the Western Church, 
703. 


African code on divorce, 285, 336; on 
mixed marriages, 469, 497. 

Agde, Council of, on divorce, 366, 384 ; 
on mixed marriages, 529, 573. 








Age, impediment of, 128; Justinian, 
128 ; the later Canon law, 129. 


Alurict Breviarium, 374. 


Alemanni, laws of the, regarding 


divorce, 381. 
Alexander III. on impotence, 127. 


Alexander VI.’s dispensations for mar- 
riage, 705. 
Alexius, §., 132. 


Ambrose, S., on the benediction, 95, 
98; on the copula, 116, 117; on 
divorce, 244, 318; on the re- 
marriage of converts and mixed 
marriages, 472, 499; on second 
marriages, 607, 617 ; on polygamy, 
621, 627; on marriage with a niece, 
690, 695. 

Ambrosiaster on divorce, 287, 342 ; on 
the remarriage of converts, 476, 
503; on bigamy, 600; on second 
marriages, 608, 617. 

America, missions in, and the Pauline 
privilege, 560. 

Amphilochius, S., on second marriages, 
609, 618. 

Anastasia, 8., 458. 

Ancyra, Council of, on divorce, 227, 
295 ; refers to penance for second 
marriage, 603, 612 ; on connection 
with two sisters, 680, 685. 

Anglican Church, see England, 

Anglican Prayer Book, see Common 

Prayer. 
Angers, Council of, on divorce, 365, 


Apostolical Canons on divorce, 189, 216 ; 
impliedly exclude polygamy, 598 ; 
on marriage with two sisters succes- 
sively, 679, 683. 

Apostolical Constitutions on thecopula, 
116, 117 ; on divorce, 233, 308, 


710 HOLY MATRIMONY 


Arles, Council of, on divorce, 227, 294; 
on mixed marriages, 469, 496. 


Arrhae, 88, 87. 


Asterius of Amasea, S., on divorce, 
233, 309 ; impliedly excludes poly- 
gamy, 599, 


Athenagoras on divorce, 180, 201; on 
second marriages, 180, 609. 


Augustine, S., on the Divine institu- 
tion of marriage, 5 ; on the copula, 
118; on divorce, 252, 325; on the 
remarriage of converts and mixed 
marriages, 478, 504; on second 
marriages, 608, 618 ; on polygamy, 
621, 627; on marriages of near 
kin, 690, 696. 


Australasia, divorce legislation, 11. 
Ayliffe on divorce, 404, 428. 


Baptism essential to Christian mar- 
riage, 78. 

Baptized, the inalienable character of 
the, 149. 


Barbarians, legislation as to the mar- 
riage of Romans with, 496, 526. 


Basil, 8., on the benediction, 95, 99; 
on divorce, 228, 298; on the 
Pauline privilege, 470, 497; on 
second, third, &c., marriages, 604, 
612; on unions of near kin, 686, 
692; on marriage .with deceased 
wife’s sister, 687, 693. 


Bede, the Venerable, 398, 422. 


Benedict XIV. on the Pauline privi- 
lege, 541, 567 ; on mixed marriages, 
546, 575; with heretics, 581. 

Benedict the Levite, on divorce, 372, 
391. 


Benediction not essential, 78-101; 
introduced by Christians among 
ceremonies of Roman marriage, 90 ; 
regarded as essential in the East, 
91; confession of Peter Mogilas, 
91; by some in the West, 92; 
authorities to Charlemagne, 93-96. 


Bernard of Pavia on the Pauline privi- 
lege, 535, 557. 

Bertha married to Ethelbert, a non- 
Christian, 574. 

Bonaventure, S., on the dissolubility 
of non-Christian marriages, 538. 

Borach Levi, case of, 542, 567. 


Bourges, Council of, on divorce, 371, 
389. 


Breviarium Alarici, 374. 

British Isles, the churches of, on 
divorce, 394-432: summary of tes- 
timony, 431. 

Burgundionum, Lex Romana, 374. 

Burn on divorce, 406, 


Caecilia, S., 455. 


Cajetan, Cardinal, expression of di- 
lemma as to Pope’s dispensing 
power, 706. 


Calvinistic doctrine of the Fall, 25 ; 
no place in it for sacramental grace, 
26. 


Canada, the law as to marriage and 
divorce, 10. 


Canonists on the copula, 122 ; on im- 
potence, 126; on divorce, 390 ; on 
the remarriage of converts, 554 ; 
on mixed marriages, 574. 

Captivity a ground of divorce in the 
East, 360. 

Capitulary of Charlemagne on the 
benediction, 96, 100. 

Capitularies of the Frankish kings on 
the benediction, 96, 100. 

Captives of war, regulations as to, in 
their bearing on polygamy, 48. 
Catechumens, marriage difficulties as 

to, 463, 510, 520. 

Catholic doctrine of the Fall, 25. 

Celtic morality in early times, 408. 

Chalcedon, Council of, on marriages 
with heretics, 493, 519. 

Charisma of the married, 148. 

Charlemagne, capitulary of, on the 
benediction, 96, 100. 

Children of converts, sanctification of, 
440. 

Chosen People, marriage among the, 
41 ; prior to Mosaic code, 41 ; mar- 
riage of near kin, 42; the patriarchs, 

.44; practice of polygamy after 
promulgation of Mosaic code, 49 ; 
divorce, 51 ; the Levirate custom, 54. 

Christian, a person validly baptized, 579. 

Christian Matrimony, 19, 74. 

Chromatius, S., on divorce, 246, 319. 

Chrysostom, S., on the Divine institu- 
tion of marriage, 4; on the copula, 
116, 117; on divorce, 234, 310; 
on the remarriage of converts and 
mixed marriages, 443, 470, 497; on 
second marriages, 606, 616. 


EE ΣΝ νον... ὁ. ϑνμμ μι. μὰ, ὦ... 


INDEX 


Circumstances affording presumption 
of adultery, or equivalent to adul- 
tery, as a ground of divorce in the 
East, 356. 


Clement, S., of Alexandria, on the 
benediction, 93, 96 ; on the copula, 
116, 117; on divorce, 180, 202; on 
polygamy, 598, 601, 626; on suc- 
cessive marriages, 601, 610. 

Clement IX., dispensations for mixed 
marriages, 541, 

Clementis Judiciwm, 397, 420. 


Clementines (pseudo) on the benedic- 
tion, 93, 97. 

Clermont, Council of, on mixed mar- 
riages, 529, 573. 

Clotilda married to Clovis, a non- 
Christian, 574. 

Cnute, Laws Ecclesiastical, 401, 425. 

Co-emptio, 81. 

Common Prayer, Book of, on the 
Divine institution of marriage, 6 ; 
on the indissolubility of marriage, 
408, 426; table of prohibited 
degrees appended to, 646, 708. 


Compiegne, Council of, on divorce, 368, 
387 


Concessions after the Fall, 27. 


Conclusions, as to divorce and remar- 
riage, 437; as to the remarriage 
of converts and mixed marriages, 
589 ; as to polygamy, 632. 

Confarreatio, 80. 

Congregatio Concilii, Sacra, on the 
Pauline privilege, 540, 564. 

Congregation of the Propaganda, 
Sacred, on the interpellation, 545, 
569. 

Congregatio Sancti Offictt, Sacra, on 
the Pauline privilege (missions of 
Cochin), 542, 568; on dispensa- 
tions for mixed marriages, 542, 576. 

Conjugium initiatum and conjugium 
ratum, 123. 

Connecticut, divorce legislation, 14. 

Consanguinity, when no bar to mar- 
riage, 648. 

Consent, essential under the Roman 
law, 78; essential to Christian 
marriage, 101; what it covers, 108 ; 
the Anglican Prayer Book, 108 ; 
the Roman Ritual, 110; the Eastern 
Euchologion, 111. 


Constantine, legislation of, as to 
divorce, 290, 291. 








711 


Constantine to Justinian, evidence of 
period as regards divorce and re- 
marriage, 227-346 ; general features 
of the period, 288 ; evidence as to 
remarriage of converts and mixed 
marriages, 469, 519 ; evidence as to 
marriages of near kin, 686, 692. 

Contumelia Creatoris, 554. 


Copula, essential, 112-135 ; testimony 
of Holy Scripture, 113; of the 
Church in history, 115 ; of reason, 
134 ; shame of copula, 122. 


Corruption of all flesh, the, 29. 


Cousins, marriage of first, Roman law 
as to, 670, 696; S. Augustine on 
such marriages, 690, 696. 


Cyprian, 8., on divorce, 189, 214; on 
mixed marriages, 452, 461. 

Cyril, S., of Jerusalem, on second 
marriages, 605, 614. 


Deceased wife’s sister, marriage with, 
648 ; forbidden to Christians, what- 
ever the construction of Lev. xviii. 
18, 649 ; construction of the verse 
discussed, 650, 696 ; the marriage 
not forbidden by Roman, Hindu, 
or Mohammedan law, 677 ; the 
question in the Christian Church, 
681-697 ; Papal dispensations for 
such marriages, 704. 

Declarations of nullity in England, 428, 


Degrees of relationship, Roman method 
of computing, 698 ; method of the 
Western Church, 702. 


Designs on life a ground of divorce in 
the East, 354. 


Difference of religion a ground of 
divorce in the East, 357. 


Dionysio-Hadrianus Codex, 390. 


Dispensations for marriages with non- 
Christians, 575. 

Dispensations for marriage within pro- 
hibited degrees, unknown in Eastern 
Church, 702; practice of in Western 
Church, 704; extended to marriages 
within Levitical prohibitions, 704 ; 
question how far held valid in 
Western Church, 706. 


Dispensations for religious life when 
marriage unconsummated, 133. 
Divine institution of marriage, 1; 
evidence of Holy Scripture, 1 ; of 
the Church in history, 4; of 

Reason, 8. 


712 


Divorce, among the Israelites, 51 ; law 
of the bill of divorce, 51 ; divorce 
not originated or rendered easier by 
the Mosaic code, 52 ; as regards the 
Christian Church, evidence of Holy 
Scripture, 152; of the Church to 
the conversion of Constantine, 178 ; 
from Constantine to Justinian, 227; 
in the East from Justinian, 346 ; in 
the West from Justinian, 362; the 
Churches of the British Isles, 394 ; 
testimony of Reason, 432 ; summary 
of evidence, 435. 

Divorce Act of 1857, 429. 

Divorce a mensa et thoro, 427. 


Divorce by mutual consent, 193, 195, 
290, 348 ; completely recognised by 
the Roman law, 348 ; opposed by 
Christian teachers, 348 ; admitted 
by Justinian in his 22nd novel, 
349 ; forbidden by Justinian in his 
117th novel, 349; such divorces 
valid notwithstanding, though irre- 
gular, 350; again legalized by 
Justin 11., 350; condemned by 
the Couneil in Trudlo, 350; further 
enactments of the emperors, 351 ; 
divorce by consent finally abolished 
at the end of the ninth century, 
352; faithfulness of the Church, 
352 ; Roman codes of the West, 380. 


Divorce on specified grounds under the 
Roman law, 291; in the Eastern 
Churches, 352. 


Divorces in England by Act of Parlia- 
ment, 427. 
Dunstan, code of S., 400, 425. 


Eanham, Canons of, 400, 425. 


East after Justinian, testimony as to 
divorce and remarriage, 347-362 ; 
as to remarriage of converts and 
mixed marriages, 523-529 ; exten- 
sion of prohibitions of marriage, 698. 

Kast and West, divergence of, 289, 316. 


Eclogue of Leo the Isaurian and Con- 
stantine on the benediction, 96, 100. 

Edictum Theodorici, 374. 

Egbert, Dialogue of, 397, 419; Peni- 
tential of, 419. 

Eliberis, Council of, on divorce and 
remarriage, 189, 216; on the 
remarriage of converts and mixed 
marriages, 453, 463; impliedly 
excludes polygamy, 599; on mar- 
riage with deceased wife’s sister, 
679, 685. 


HOLY MATRIMONY 


England, divorce legislation, 9 ; English 
Church on divorce and marriage, 
394-432 ; on the remarriage of 
converts, 550, 572; on marriage 
with near kin, 707. 

Epiphanius, 8., on divorce, 231, 305 ; 
on bigamy, 599; on second mar- 
riages, 605, 615. 

Episcopal Consecration a ground of 
divorce in the East, 362. 

Error, as to person, 103; condition, 
105 ; fortune, 105 ; quality, 106. 
Essentials of Christian marriage, 76 ; 
baptism essential, 78; priestly 
solemnization not essential, 78-101; 
consent essential, 101-112 ; copula 

essential, 112-135. 

Estate, marriage an, 135. 

Eugenius IV. on dispensation to allow 
of marriage with wife’s sister, 705. 

Eunice, 454. 

Euphrosyne, 456. 


Fabiola, case of, 320, 337. 

Fall, marriage after the, and outside 
Christianity, 19. 

Fall, the; contrast of the Catholic and 
Calvinistic theologies, 24. 

Finian, Penitential of S., 394, 411. 

First three centuries, evidence as to 
divorce, 178-228 ; as to remarriage 
of converts and mixed marriages, 
449-469 ; as to marriages of near 
kin, 677, 680. 

Force and fear, impediment of, 106. 

Forum externum of the Bishop, 375. 

Frankish laws of divorce, 381. 

Friuli, Council of, on divorce, 364, 379. 

Futuro, contracts de, 182; cum subse- 
quente copula, 133. 


Germany, remarriage of converts, 549. 

Gildas on the immorality of the Welsh 
princes, 395, 412. 

Grace of Christian marriage, 145-150. 

Gratian on the copula, 123 ; on impo- 
tence, 126; on divorce, 392; on 
the remarriage of converts and on 
mixed marriages, 533, 554. 

Gregory the Great, S., on divorce, 362, 
376. 


Gregory II. on divorce, 363, 377. 


Gregory Nazianzen, S., on divorce, 231, 
306. 


INDEX 


Gregory Nyssen, 8., on the Church in 
Jerusalem, 615. 


Gregory XIII. on the Pauline privilege, 
539, 562. 


Henry VIII. and Katharine of Aragon, 
dispensation for the marriage of, 
705; question of validity of the 
marriage and of the dispensation, 
707. 


Heretics not clearly distinguished from 
heathens in ancient days, 580. 


Hermas on divorce, 178, 198 ; impliedly 
excludes polygamy, 598 ; on second 
marriages, 601, 609. 

Herod Antipas’ sin, marriage with bis 
brother’s wife, 655, 

Hertford, Council of, on divorce, 395, 
414, 


High Treason a ground of divorce in 
the East, 354. 

Hilary of Poictiers, S., on divorce, 251, 
325. 

Hinduism, marriage regulations of, 65 ; 
as regards polygamy, 66 ; divorce, 
68 ; prohibited degrees, 661, 673. 

Hinkmar of Rheims on impotence, 127; 
on the Pauline privilege, 532, 551. 

Hippo, Council of, on mixed marriages, 
478, 503. 

Hippolytus, 8., Arabic canons of, on 
divorce, 287, 340. 


Hippolytus, 8., on the marriage of 
Christian ladies with slaves, 453, 
462. 

Home-coming of the bride in Roman 
marriage, 89. 

Honorius and Theodosius, legislation 
of, as to divorce, 290, 292. 

Howel the Good, Laws of, 898, 423. 

Hugo of S. Victor, on the Pauline 
privilege, 532, 552; injuria Crea- 
toris, 554, 

Husband bound to put away for con- 
tinuing adultery, 220, 343. 


Husband may put away for πορνεία, 
219, 343. 


Ignatius, S., on the benediction, 93, 96. 
Illinois, divorce legislation, 15. 


Impediments which hinder Christian 
marriage — error, 103; force and 
fear, 106; abduction, 107 ; impo- 
tence, 125; age, 128; other im- 
pediments, 136. 





713 


Impenitent adulteress not to be re- 
ceived, 226, 345; no similar rule 
as regards the husband, 226, 345. 


Impotence, impediment of, 125; the 
Roman law, 125°; Justinian, 125 ; 
Hinkmar of Rheims, 126; the 
Canonists, 126; Gratian, 126 ; 
Alexander IIJ., 126; Sixtus V., 
127 ; present practice of the Latin 
Church, 127; of the Church of 
England, 128 ; a ground of divorce 
in the Kast, 359. 

Incest, see Near Kin, marriages of, and 
Prohibited Degrees. 

Incest as related to the Fall, 48, 634. 

Incestuous practices, 37; Divine punish- 
ment of, 635; charges of, against 
the early Christians, 677, 681. 

India, laws of divorce, 16; and see 
Hinduism, and Islam. 

India, missions in, and the Pauline 
privilege, 560. 

Injuria Creatoris, 554. 

Innocence, marriage in the state of, 
18, 21; objects of marriage, 21 ; 
copula, 22; exclusion of polygamy, 
23 ; exclusion of divorce, 23. 

Innocent I., S., on the benediction, 
95,99; on divorce, 285, 336; on the 
remarriage of converts, 490, 516. 

Innocent III. on the Pauline privilege, 
536, 559. 

Insanity a ground of divorce in the 
East, 361. 

“ς Institution of a Christian man” on 
divorce, 402, 426. 

Interpellatio, the, 561. 

Ireland, divorce not admitted by the 
secular law, 10. 

Irenaeus, S., on second marriages, 601, 
609. 

Isidore (Pseudo) on divorce, 372, 391. 

Islam, marriage regulations of, 70; the 
Sunni code, 71; the Imamiyah or 
Shia code, 71; law as to prohibited 
degrees, 665, 675. 

Italy, remarriage of converts, 549. 


Jacob’s marriage with two sisters, 45, 
641, 697. 

Jerome, S., on the Divine institution of 
marriage, 5; on the copula, 116, 
118 ; on divorce, 246, 319 ; on the 
remarriage of converts and mixed 


714 


marriages, 475, 500; on second 
marriages, 606, 616 ; on polygamy, 
620, 627. 

Jews, legislation as to the marriage of 
Christians with, 495. 

Joining of hands, the, 
83, 87 

Julia, lex, de adulteriis, 194. 

Julia et Papia Poppaea, lex, 291. 

Juliana, S., 456. 

Julius II., dispensation by, for marriage 
with a brother’s wife, 705. 

Justin Martyr, S., on divorce, 179, 200; 
no reference to the remarriage of 
converts, 459 ; on bigamy, 598. 

Justinian, legislation regarding impo- 
tence, 125; divorce, 2938, 349; 
code of, in the courts of Italy, 375. 


in marriage, 


Kiss, the, in marriage, 83, 87. 


Lactantius on divorce, 227, 296 ; 
pliedly excludes polyg gamy, 599. 


Laeta, mother of, 495. 


Lambeth Conference, on divorce, 406, 
430 ; on polygamy, 622, 628. 


Lamech, the first polygamist, 30. 

Laodicea, Council of, on marriages with 
heretics, 469, 497°; on second mar- 
riages, 603, 612. 

Lateran Council, Fourth, on prohibited 
degrees, 703. 

Leo the Great, S., 286, 339. 


Leo XIII. on the Divine institution of 
matlriage, 5. 

Leprosy a ground of divorce in the 
East, 362. 

Levirate custom, 54; 
under other circumstances con- 
demned, 55; not a new law, but 
the permission of an existing cus- 
tom, 57; practised among other 
peoples, 58 ; possibly a survival of 
polyandry, 59; or a form of the 
inheritance of chattels, 61; not 
devoid of a sinful character, but 
suffered for the hardness of men’s 
hearts, 62; referred to on the 
question of marriage with a deceased 
wife’s sister, 649, 654. 

Levitical prohibitions of marriage, 638. 

Leviticus xviii. 18 discussed, 650. 


Lex Romana Visigothorum, 374; Bur- 
gundionum, 374. 


the connexion 











HOLY MATRIMONY 


Lima, Council of, on the Pauline 
privilege, 540, 563. 

Lothair IL, acerpta Canonum on 
divorce, 370, 389. 

Lothair and Theutberga, case of, 389. 

Louisiana, divorce legislation, 14. 


“Magnet,” principle of the, 647, 699. 

Manus, marriages without the, 82. 

Manuscripts of S. Matthew xix. 9, 
153; Codex Sinaiticus, 153; Codex 
Vaticanus, 154 ; Codex Ephraemi, 
154; Codex Bezae, 155; Codex 
Tischendorfianus II., 156. 


Marcia, concubine of Commodus, 454. 

Marriages with heretics, 581. 

Martin V., dispensation by, for mar- 
riage with wife’s sister, 704. 

Massachussetts, divorce legislation, 13. 


Matthew, S., xix. 9, 152; evidence of 
manuscripts, 153; versions, 156 ; 
Fathers, 158 ; suggested text, 162 ; 
this text subjected to the canons of 
internal evidence, 165 ; passage too 
uncertain for employment in argu- 
ment, 167; explanations of the 
Textus Receptus, 167; Keble’s 
view, 167; Von Dollinger’s, 168 ; 
the concession view, 170. 

Melchior Canus on the benediction, 92. 

Meserga, inscription at, 449. 


Michael Cerularius on _ prohibited 
degrees, 699. 

Mixed marriages, 438-590 ; forbidden 
rather by customary law than by 
canon, 574. 


Mohammedan law, see Islam. 
Monnica, S., 494. 

Monogamia, ΕἸΣ meaning, 611. 
Moral law raised by Christ, 28. 


Mosaic code, 46 ; as to polygamy, 46 ; 
divorce, 51; the Levirate custom, 
54; marriages with near kin, 638. 


Nantes, Council of, on divorce, 366, 
385. 


Near Kin, marriages of, 634-708 ; 
Divine prohibitions of, universally 
binding, 635 ; prohibitions con- 
tained in Holy Scripture, 638 ; 
contained in Roman, Hindu, and 
Musulman systems of law, 656 ; 
testimony of the Church in histor γ, 
677; great extension of prohibi- 
tions, 697. 


INDEX 


ἐς Necessary Doctrine and Erudition,” 
426. 


Neo-Caesarea, Council of, on divorce, 
227, 296 ; on successive marriages, 
603, 611; on marriage with two 
brothers, 680, 686. 

Newfoundland, divorce not admitted 
by the secular law, 11. 

New York, divorce legislation, 13. 

Nicaea, Council of, on second marriages, 
603, 612. 

Nicene-Arabic canons on mixed mar- 

riages, 523, 525. 

Nicholas I. on divorce, 380. 


Nicholas III., Synod under, on 
spiritual relationship, 701. 


Niece, marriage with, how far lawful 
under Roman law, 669, 673; S. 
Ambrose on, 690, 695 ; Papal dis- 
pensations granted for, 706. 

Non-Christian peoples, marriageamong, 
63. 

Nonna, 494. 


Northumbrian Priests, Laws of the, 
400, 428. 





Offences against nature, 38. 


Opus imperfecum in Matthaeum on 
divorce, 287, 342. 


Origen on divorce, 186, 212 ; on second 
marriages, 602, 611 ; on polygamy, 
619, 625. 

Orleans, Councils of, on divorce, 366, 
385 ; on mixed marriages, 529, 530, 
573. 


Paradise, statement that there was no 
copula in, 119. 

Paris, Sixth Council of, on divorce, 
370, 389. 

Patrick, canons attributed to S., 398, 
422. 

Patrick, Second Synod of S., on divorce, 
394, 411. 

Paul III., polygamists on conversion 
may choose any one of their wives, 
538, 561. 

Pauline privilege (privilegium Pau- 
linum), 1 Cor. vii. 12-16, 441. 

Pennsylvania, divorce legislation, 15. 

Personal law, systems of, in the West, 
374. 

Pescennia Quodvultdeus, 459. 

Peter Lombard on the Pauline privi- 
lege, 534, 557. 








710 


Pius V.,.a polygamist may retain the 
wife who is baptized with him, 538, 
562. 


Pius LX. on the benediction, 92. 


Polyandry, 82; in India, 32; else- 
where, 34; husband of polyandrous 
woman may not continue the union 
after baptism, 586, 624, 632. 


Polygamia, its meaning, 611. 


Polygamy of the Hebrews, in Egypt, 
45; as admitted under the Mosaic 
code, 46; as practised, 49, 596; 
whether Lev. xviii. 18 is a pro- 
hibition of, 650. 


Polygamy, question of its admissibility 
for Christians, 591-633 ; references 
to Holy Scripture, 592; early 
Church not confronted with, 595 ; 
question answered by implication 
in teaching of the Church as to 
adultery and divorce, 597 ; and as 
to second marriages, 600, 609 ; 
treated in commentaries on Old 
Testament, 625; Lambeth Con- 
ference, 628; conclusions, 628. 


Polygamy unknown to Roman law, 596. 


Πορνεία in ὃ. Matt. xix. 9 held to mean 
adultery, 221, 843; never pre- 
nuptial unchastity, 222, 343; but 
sometimes figurative adultery, 222, 
944. 


Praesenti, contracts de, 1380; Innocent 
ΠΕ Alexanders lili) elo ls 
contrasted with contracts de futuro, 
132. 

Priests forbidden by the Mosaic code 
to marry divorced women, 53, 

Probationary marriages in Wales, 424. 

Prohibited Degrees—table 1, marriage 
forbidden to the man, 640; table 2, 
marriages forbidden to the woman, 
643; table 8, table of the English 
Church, 646, 708, and see Near Kin. 

Promiscuity, 35. 

Property laws in their bearing on 
polygamy, 47. 

Puberty essential, 130. 


Reason, arguments from, on the Divine 
institution of marriage, 8; on 
divorce, 432; on the remarriage 
of converts and on mixed mar- 
riages, 583. 


Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum on 
divorce, 401, 426. 


716. 


Religious life, in the West a ground 
for the dissolution of unconsum- 
mated marriage, 132; in the East 
a ground for divorce, 362. 

Remarriage after divorce, not admitted 
in the first three centuries, 222 ; 
differences of opinion in the period 
from Constantine to Justinian, 
344; admitted by the East, 346- 
362; rejected by the West, 393; 
the British Churches, 394-482 ; 
arguments from Reason, 4382. 


Remarriage of converts, 438-590; 
rationale, 438; evidence of Holy 
Scripture, 441; of the Church in 
history, 449 ; of Reason, 583 ; con- 
clusions, 589. 


Restoration of penitent adulteress per- 
missible, 225 ; and even obligatory, 
226; husband may be received 
whether penitent or not, 226; in 
period following Constantine the 
East commonly refuses the restora- 
tion of the adulteress, 344 ; in the 
West S. Augustine maintains it, 
345. 


Rheims, Council of, on divorce, 371, 
390. 

Ring, the marriage, 83, 87. 

Robert of Malmsbury on the Pauline 
privilege, 535, 558. 

Roland (Alexander III.) on the Pauline 
privilege, 534, 556. 

Roman law of divorce, 191 ; facility of 
divorce, 192; divorce by consent, 
193.; lex Julia de adulteriis, 194; 
Constantine, 291; Honorius and 
Theodosius, 292; Theodosius and 
Valentinian, 292. 


Roman law, polygamy unknown to, 
596. 


Roman law, prohibitions of marriage 
on the ground of relationship, 656, 
668. 


Roman marriage customs, 80; confar- 
reatio, 80 ; co-emptio, 81 ; usus, 81 ; 
marriages without the manus, 82 ; 
the sponsalia, 83 ; the wedding, 84. 


Roman Synod (402 A.D.) on marriage | 


with wife’s sister or uncle’s wife, 
692, 697. 


Roman Synod (721 A.D.) on marriage 
with kindred, 703. 


Rome, Synod of (826 A.p.), on divorce, 
365, 379. 


Rouen, Council of, on divorce, 390. 














HOLY MATRIMONY 


Sacrament, marriage a, 137-150; 
meaning of the word sacrament, 
137 ; irrespective of Christianity, 
139 ; sacramentum of the Vulgate, 
and of the early Latin Fathers, 
141; “ordained by Christ Him- 
self,’ 142; “sacraments” of the 
English homily, 145 ; outward and 
visible sign of an inward and 
spiritual grace, 145 ; is grace con- 
ferred ? 145. : 

Sapinda relationship in Hindu law, 
662, 674. 

Schoolmen on the copula, 119. 

Scotland, divorce legislation, 10. 


Second Marriages, see Successive 
Marriages. 

Siricius, 8., on the benediction, 94, 98. 

Sisinnius on prohibited degrees, 699, 
700.° 

Sixtus V. on impotence, 127. 

Slavery a ground of divorce in the 
East, 360. 

Socrates, the historian, 
marriages, 609, 618. 

Soissons, Council of, on divorce, 367, 
9806. 

Spain, practice of the Church of, as to 
remarriage of converts, 547. 

Spiritual relationship as a ground of 
divorce in the East, 858; as a 
ground of prohibition of marriage, 
661, 700, 703. 

Sponsalia, 83. 

Statuta Ecclesiae Antiquae on the 
benediction, 95, 99; on second 
marriages, 608, 618. 

Successive marriages, teaching of early 
Church as to, 600, 609-618. 


Suchu, Synod of, on the remarriage of 
converts, and on the case of a 
polygamist, 544, 570. 

Supervenient incapacity; Theodore’s 
penitential, 416; Dialogue of 
Egbert, 419; Gregory 11., 377. 

Susanna, S., 457. 

Synesius married to a Christian lady 
before his own baptism, 498. 


Synesius on the benediction, 95, 99. 


on second 


Tables of prohibited marriages, 640, 
643, 646; history of the Anglican 
table, 708. 


Tables, the marriage, 83, 88. 


INDEX 


Tancred on the Pauline privilege, 536, 
558. 


Tarragona, Council of, on mixed mar- 
riages, 531, 548. 

Tertullian on the benediction, 93, 97 ; 
on divorce, 182, 204; on the re- 
marriage of converts and mixed 
marriages, 449, 460 ; on polygamy, 
598, 619, 626; on second mar- 
riages, 602, 610; on Herod’s mar- 
riage with his sister-in-law, 679, 
682. 

Teutonic morality in early times, 410. 


Theodore’s Penitential on divorce, 396, 
413 ; on the remarriage of converts, 
531, 550. 


Theodore of Mopsuestia on 
husband of one wife,” 593. 


Theodoret on divorce, 242, 314; on 
the remarriage of converts, 492, 
519; on ‘‘the husband of one 
wife,” 594; on Ley. xviii. 18, 692, 
697. 

Theodorict Edictum, 374. 


Theodosius and Valentinian, legislation 
as to divorce, 290, 292. 


Theophilus of Antioch on divorce, 180, 


a 


Theophylact on the remarriage of 
converts, 444, 525, 527. 


Thomas Aquinas, 8., on the Divine 
institution of marriage, 5; on the 
copula in paradise, 23, 119; on 
the dissolubility of non-Christian 
marriage, 537, 560; on marriages 
void for consanguinity or affinity, 
704. 


Three characters of marriage as found 
in history, 18. 

Timothy of Alexandria, S., on the 
benediction, 94, 98; on divorce, 
234, 310; on marriage with an 
aunt or a wife’s sister, 690, 695. 

Toledo, Councils of, on divorce, 367, 


385; on mixed marriages, 530, 547, 
573. 


*€ the 





fay: 


Tours, Council of, on divorce, 371, 390. 


Trent, Council of, on prohibited de- 
grees and on dispensations for 
marriage, 705. 

Tribur, Council of, on the remarriage 
of converts, 531, 549. 

Trullo, Council in, on mixed marriages, 
524, 526; on prohibited degrees, 
698, 700. 


United States of America, 
legislation, 12. 


Usus, 81. 


divorce 


Van Espen on consent, 112. 

Vannes, Council of, on divorce, 366,383. 

Verberies, Council of, on divorce, 367, 
387. 

Verianus, case of the daughter of, 308. 

Versions of S. Matt. xix. 9, Syriac, 
157; Old Latin, 157; Memphitic 
and Sahidic, 157. 

Victoria, divorce legislation, 11. 

Virgin Mary, marriage of the Blessed, 
appealed to as a proof that the 
copula is not essential, 120. 

Virginia, divorce not accorded by the 
secular law, 18. 

Visigothorum, Lex Romana, 374, 


Wallici, Canones, 395, 412. 


West after Justinian, testimony of 
period as to divorce and remarriage, 
362-394 ; as to the remarriage of 
converts and mixed marriages, 
529-583 ; great extension of pro- 
hibitions on marriage, 697, 702. 

Wife may put away for adultery, 220, 
949, 


Wife not bound to put away for 
adultery, 221, 343. 

Worms, Council of, prohibiting mar- 
riage with relations, 703; Synod 
of, on divorce, 370, 389. 


Zacharias on divorce, 364, 378. 














nee 


















tia gare aa To salt ai a Tee 4 τὰς δον eo ΠΣ 
Seen SM in κατα τύπος Woes SRS ee 
eS a ae ete Mh uy Ml a as ag Se a Sot ~ ea 
Be ᾿ tit oe em ἴα Soe 
παν. ὃ... ΡΝ ὸ 
͵ 


a 









 κὶ 


΄ 
~ 


1 


ἜΝ 


sae 


ΚΝ, 


ἽΝ 


᾿ 


‘ 


ἌΝΕΥ, 


ον 


ἰὸς 
ra 
at 
«“᾿ 
¢ ων 
τ os 
« “Ἂν 
Ο hee 
<< Ἢ 
- μὰς 
*. ἣν 
Sees + 
gts Hee 
* a ὡ 
- Me! Xa 
aa Ses 
> Σ 
; es 
“7 δὰ on 
5 


4 
" < “ 
* 
ae 
> 
yry “a 
ry 


Py 
Α 
< 


see 


ete 


yz 


πῶσ. 
tee 


“ἰῷ 
ῳ 
--- ψ-5 
ῳ 
ΟΊ 
τ-- 
© 
— 


1/732 


3 


Ce ata tans 


‘ PP 


7X? 


4“ .εν 
SAL EAA ED 
“τ: 

Ἵ 


RA Naa” 
4 
4 4 

« 
eae ae ae 


. 


Α « 


Z 4 
MASALA 


ae 
‘ 
MAN 


444 


148 
4 


a8 


ΨΥ 


ἌΥΥΜ ΚΙ 


4 


= . 
vise 


Ext ithe 4 
alata 


144.44 


a4 


ee ead 
AAAAA ὁ « 
Ἄν 
ν᾽ 4. a4 


14% 
RAAAA 44 


* 
{πὶ 


κα 
ΠῚ 
ἫΝ» 


448 


44 


AA 


ΜΙ 
444 


᾿, 
4 


AAAS AA AA 
44 4 4AA ἐ 
oe 


A4Ae sane 


ΨΥ 


4 
AAA, ‘ 
»Ἣ»»"»»»"» 


“ὦ 


Ae 44444444 
£AAAAN AAR 


«. 
“ 


4 
* 


aa 
faa s 
444 
44 


i444 


aA 


< 


ἜΧΗΙ 
+4 


4 


FM 


ced 


4 


δας 


iets 


ee 


ἀπο τς ἐξ τς τῷ τς 


Saleh 


sDpcs 


Sigs 


446 


sate 


Ὡς 


ἔν Ξε ue 


4 1AM A 4 
4A AAAS AAR A 
a4 448 444 
4 
͵ 


Ν᾿ 
“AA 


44 
444 
Stat tatt 
AAA A 


"4 
14 


‘AAA AS ς 

4AA GMA a4 4 ny 

Ἢ ΓΝ ΥΨΨΨΨΨΕ! 
4 τ 4 «24 48 


44 
* 


aS 


ζω 


+ 


oats 
ἜΜΕΝ, 


SAAR 


“4a ade 


4 


τώ 
4. hee eae 


‘ 


tit aaa tage 


a4 ate 

ἘΝῚ “4 A AAA SE 
AR AAS AAA A A 
“ ‘ ἊΨ 


‘ 
aaa 
a 
‘ ae 


‘ 
444 


¢ 


boi 


a 


444 ἦν 
44 


4A 


‘ 
A 


‘ 


a) 
At 
SP 


ees 


τὰ 


᾿ 


SARKAA SAAS A 
4 4'« 


448 
J 


~ 


Ἢ Ν 4 44:1 ἡ 
444444 
CHARA AA 


444 


44 


εἰν. a ge 
SAA At aand 


‘ 


MAAR A ee 


taaae 
4eaaee 
444A 44 ead 


4 
SAMARAS AA 


4 {4.44 ὁ 4 


dees 


ete 


VA tea aan 


a4 


14.4 44.4 


44444 
AA AA 
44 4 4444 


“4 4 4 
“4444 DAL 


a4 
tty “4 < 


νη 
" 


e024 
‘ «4,4 


Φ, 


AAA ARES 


: Meds 


νι, 
Speer ® 


444 ΝΜ 
CRA CA 
sae 


. 
4 


Sa 


4 


an ee 


ead agupoienseee 


Ω 


« ™ 


re ae ae 


ΩΝ 
~ »: 


Sets hs θα 
Ἐπ 


- Fox. 
pei tes 


"oe 


yea πε Mes 
syne e 


ὭΣ ας 


ΣΕ ΧΕ 
κοντα 


¢ 
3, 


= 


ἈΕῚ 
΄ 


iain! 





teat 


“2 ον, 


